#Maximal No More

[prissnukem]

[maefansblog]

Colin's Feelings for Penelope

Buckle up, because this is a long one.

Colin has always had feelings for Penelope. It did not just happen because of her glow up or because he was jealous. It also doesn't happen overnight. They are true friends who turn into lovers.

Feelings can start as admiration, protectiveness, care, friendship, pride, and turn into jealousy, lust, and love.

As he says in Season 2, "Our relationship has taken shape so naturally over the years, one could take it for granted," Colin tells Penelope. "You have always been so constant and loyal, Pen."

I've said this in another post, but Penelope's makeover revealed who she truly was, while Colin's makeover was to cover his insecurities. Colin fell in love with Penelope because she truly stepped into herself. As Lady Danbury said that all Penelope had to do was be herself.

When Colin apologizes in the garden in Season 3 Episode 1, it almost feels like a love confession.

In Lessons, he encourages Penelope to be herself-even referencing how they first met!

Colin's relationship is so strong with Penelope that he remembers how he and Penelope first met. He even recalls it fondly, calling her charming.

Colin is constantly chasing after Penelope in Season 3!

He is constantly touching her and wanting to get her alone.

Colin has so many longing looks where he is pining for Penelope. I'll describe a few of them. In Season 1 Episode 8, when looks for Penelope across the ballroom and catches her gaze before going up to her. In Season 2, when Colin returns home, and the world stops when he catches Penelope’s eyes.

Like in Season 3, when Penelope leaves Colin when she says things changed. He has such a lost puppy dog look. Then, with Goodnight Mister Bridgerton, he is so disappointed in himself and longs for Penelope to return. He has a longing and jealous look when Penelope is talking to Lord Basilio and Lord Remington during the Full Moon Ball.

The longing at the sweets tent, after the balloon rescue, when Lord Debling dances with Penelope at the Innovation Ball, the mirror pine at the library, before and during the wedding dance, when Penelope wears her nightgown, at Francesca's wedding and before the big Declaration at the Butterfly Ball.

Colin ALMOST confesses his feelings at the Willow Tree and before Penelope first danced with Lord Debling at the Innovation Ball. His words got jumbled and his nerves got the best of him. Normally, Colin prepares words before saying something important and he had no time to prepare.

Colin intended to confess his feelings when he went to the Queen's Ball (in Episode 4) and interrupted Penelope and Lord Debling's Dance.

I think Colin had rehearsed his speech a thousand times in his head. He probably imagined a thousand endings, (a few with his heart shattered, a few with them waiting years until they are together, a few with them courting, a few with them engaged, many wet dreams, a few with them married and having a family).

To Colin, if Penelope reciprocated his feelings, his idealized mind was that they were going to be together forever. I think he *tried to wait to propose,* in order to treat Penelope as she deserves.

When Colin cuts in the dance, he is not going to let anyone steal his girl. When Penelope left him on the dancefloor, he had already felt the sting of heartbreak. Yet when Penelope exited alone for her carriage, he began to hope again and could *not* let her leave without telling her. Chaos Colin definitely kicked in, and he was running on pure impulse.

He chases the carriage down with the sole purpose of confessing his feelings. He has no qualms with being alone with Penelope because he's been alone with Penelope before, and no one bats an eye.

Again, he's dreamed up a thousand endings. Colin saw his entire future realized, knowing that all of them ended happily ever after together.

We know Book Colin and Show Colin are separate people and separate stories.

However, a part of me thinks the show Colin kept the part of "I wouldn't have compromised someone without rendering a marriage proposal" stuck.

[Also, Book Colin doesn't start the day off thinking he was going to marry Penelope. He follows Penelope to the church, gets jealous that she might be meeting a Lover, is shocked that she is Lady Whistledown, they argue, he gets a little turned on, she states that she doesn't believe she's beautiful, then Colin declares she is. He knows he's going to marry her in that moment, compromises her, and then immediately proposes.]

I don't think Colin intended to propose. (Although I make jokes that he did! 🤣) He had imagined it. However, once she said she reciprocated his feelings, he was going to marry her. He had no control of his impulses. He was locking her in. He was going to propose.

He kisses and compromises her with no thoughts but Penelope, Penelope, Penelope... like she is a siren. (Book reference.) His face looks like he's hypnotized and living out his wildest fantasies. This was Penelope, and this was love. (Another Book reference.) So when they arrive at Bridgerton house, he is firm that he loves Penelope, she has feelings for him (he doesn't know if she loves him yet), and they are going to be together forever. He has the look of "Yes that's my wife!"

When he exits the carriage, I think he had proposed so many times in his dreams that he forgot to actually say it out loud. He happily asks, " For God's sake, Penelope Featherington, Are you going to marry me or not?"

Then he locks in. Telling his mother, family... probably getting no sleep to get their new home set up. Colin is ready for forever with Penelope.

He publicly claims her.

He reassures her on multiple occasions that he cares for her, has feelings, and even loves her.

Colin tries to protect her the only way he knows how. He does this by helping her with Cousin Jack in Season 2, offering to help her find a husband at the beginning of the season, saving her from the hot air balloon accident, and even her mother's wrath.

He tries to protect her, but feels like he fails and makes things worse. Especially when he thinks she's been kidnapped, only to find out she's Lady Whistledown. When the Queen interrupts his wedding to try to capture Lady Whistledown, Colin wants her to give up, but she can't because Penelope is Lady Whistledown. He tries to solve things with Cressida, and Cressida increases the money for Blackmail. Although I made a joke in the next picture, it does show why Colin would be upset.

Even when he is mad he loves her and wants to be married to her. He ravished her on the street and was giddy to dance with his bride on their wedding day!

Penelope has also changed the way he views intimacy.

From their first kiss, the world as he knew it shattered. Colin came to a realization that he had deeper feelings for Penelope than he had never thought to examine because they had been such close friends for such a long time. She completely opened his eyes.

The carriage kiss and more demonstrated the passion that can be expressed through combining emotional and physical intimacy.

The mirror scene was something that could never compare to anything else. It was definitely love making.

The modiste kiss was a confirmation that Penelope truly loved Colin. She wanted Colin to return to who he really was instead of the fake persona that he was putting on. With this news, Colin is filled with passion and an overflow of love for the person who sees him as he is and loves him all the same.

This is why to mix physical intimacy, while Colin was angry at the beginning of their marriage, feels wrong for Colin. He is tortured by this. He sleeps fitfully, but his love for Penelope has transformed him so much that he can't go back to his beginning persona and fake intimacy. He knows true intimacy and doesn't want to sully it.

He can't stay away from her, though. He won't give up Penelope. That's why he sleeps on the sofa that they first made love to be close to her rather than choose another room in the house.

Which makes Colin's Declaration of Love so great in the end. He doesn't take away Penelope’s chance to reveal Lady Whistledown. She is sharing with the world who she is. He doesn't try to change her. He has fallen even more in love with her because he knows even more about Penelope. Colin doesn't have to fake who he is or his feelings for Penelope because he knows that Penelope accepts and loves Colin for being himself.

Colin and Penelope's final intimacy scene shows them both coming together on equal levels, knowing each other fully, and loving them all the same. He is able to love and be loved. He is able to let Penelope take the reins in certain aspects of their relationship, and he is secure enough to let her. (The puns were just naturally there.)

So Colin has had true feelings for Penelope. Their relationship progressed so naturally. He was her friend. Eventually, they turn into lovers. This is why Colin Bridgerton is top tier. This is why this couple holds such a great spot in my heart. 💕

Thanks for reading and diving into the mind of Colin Bridgerton! 💕

[why-the-heck-not]

new desk setup bc I was so so bored of the old one that I just started to forgo working with the 2nd screen just to be able to do things somewhere else & not at the desk (aka things have been way slower than they should)

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

he is just. so shaped. so so so So shaped.

[quimera-cami]

Request: Spetsnaz team baking something sweet.

[daily-odile]

everything is the same except Odile is the one looping

oh. heheheheh. muahahahaha. hold on *digs through my pile of disorganized sketches*

Odile loops au; a sketch compilation!!

Some old fic drabbles + associated sketches under cut (a6 secret spoilers):

hc: Since equipment carries over, as long as Odile uses her book in a fight, she can write down notes and have it carry over loops

toxic doomed yuri (for a more fleshed out fic I highly recommend The Sweetest Thing by soreimoon, it's amazing)

[arcadeplayer-nickonz]

saw @sorrelpaws 's dtiys pop up on my recommended page once more and thought why not join in- even if it's late as heck!

[essektheylyss]

One thing that I feel is really interesting and often forgotten about Essek is that fundamentally, his characterization has been from the start based upon his desperation for external perspectives and connection, which, along with much of his narrative and mechanical positioning, means that he actually has an extraordinary and almost (but not actually, as I'll show) counterintuitive capacity for both growth and trust.

(Buckle in. This is a long one.)

In particular, I would argue, knowing now that many places where the plot touches Ludinus have long been marked for connecting back into the current plot, that he was quite possibly built as a prime candidate for radicalization by the Ruby Vanguard. He felt isolated from his culture, he was desperate for other connection, and he was certainly of the type to believe he was too smart to be drawn into such a thing, given his initial belief that he could control the situation and the fallout. If things had gone any other way, he easily could've been on the other side by now.

As such, he has been hallmarked by being fairly open to suggestion, perhaps for this reason, but the thing about that kind of trait is that it is both how people are radicalized and deradicalized. This is certainly true of Essek, who experienced genuine kindness and quite frankly strangeness from the Nein and was able to move from the isolation the Assembly had engendered to meaningful and genuine connection, largely propelled by his own internal reflection. By the time Nein are aware of his crimes, he's already begun to express regret to an extent and, furthermore, doubt in the Assembly, including explicitly drawing a line against Ludinus, even in a position where he was on his own and probably quite vulnerable.

Similarly, when the Nein reach the Vurmas Outpost some weeks later, he has moved from regret for the position he's ended up carrying a heavy remorse. This makes sense! He's fairly introspective, seems used to spending a lot of time in his own head, and was left with plenty to mull over. It's not some kind of retcon for him to have progressed well past where the Nein left him; it just means he's an active participant in the world who has done his own work in the meantime.

This is another interesting aspect to him. I've talked about this a bit before but I cannot find the post so I'll recap here: antagonists in D&D have significantly more agency than allied NPCs. Antagonists are active forces, against which the party is meant to struggle; allies are meant to support the PCs, which means they tend to be more passive in both their actions and their character growth. Essek was both built as an antagonist, in a position that gives him significant agency, and also was then given significant opportunity to grow specifically to act as a narrative mirror for Caleb's arc. Even when he becomes a more traditional D&D ally, he still retains much of that, though he occupies a supporting role.

I believe that this is especially true because of the nature of Caleb's arc, which I've already written on; the tl;dr of this post is that Caleb is both convinced that he is permanently ruined and also desperate to prove that change is possible. Essek is that proof, because he is simply the character in a position to do so. But this also means that his propensity for introspection and openness is accentuated! He has to do the legwork on his own, for the most part, because that's where he is in the meantime.

But he still ends the campaign necessarily constricted; he is under significant scrutiny, he's at risk from the Assembly, and he goes on the run fairly soon after the story ends. He spends most of the final arc anxious and paranoid, which is valid given the crushing reality of his situation. It would be very easy to extrapolate that seven years into this reality, he would be insular, closed off, and suspicious of strangers, even in spite of the lessons he's learned from the Nein and their long term exposure.

So seeing his openness and lightness now is surprising, but at the same time, given this combination of factors in his position in the narrative over time and his defining traits, it's not by any means unreasonable.

But one thing that I found so delightful is how much trust he exhibits, which is obviously a wild thing to say about Essek in particular, given much of what he learns is both earning and offering trust, which was something he says explicitly in 2x124 that he's never really experienced: "I've never really been trusted and so I did not trust." It makes up much of the progression of his relationship with Caleb, and the trust that he is offered by the Nein in walking off the ship is the impetus he needs to grow.

But I think it's easy to talk about trust when it comes to people who have proven themselves to you or to whom you've ingratiated yourself, and that's really the most we can say about Essek by the time he leaves the Blooming Grove. There is this sense in a lot of discussion of trust (not solely in this fandom) that it is only related to either naivete or love, but there's far more to it. Trust at its best is deliberate—cultivating an openness to the world at large is a great way to combat cynicism and beget connection instead. It allows a person to maintain curiosity and be open to experience, but it can be incredibly difficult to hold onto.

It is clear that the Essek we meet now is a very pointedly and intentionally trusting individual. He trusts Caleb and by extension Caleb's trust in Keyleth, as he shows up and picks up a group of strangers from a foreign military encampment and walks in without issue. He trusts the Hells to follow his lead moving through Zadash and to exhibit enough discretion so as to avoid bringing suspicion upon all of them. He trusts that Astrid will respond well to his entrance, but he also trusts himself and the Hells enough to execute a back-up plan in the case that she doesn't. In the end, he even trusts them enough to give them his name and identity.

He doesn't scan as someone who has spent half a dozen years living like a prey animal, afraid of any shadow he runs across in an alley, withdrawn into himself and an insular family, which would've been an easy route for him to take. He scans as someone who has learned the kind of trust borne of learned confidence and a trained eye for good will and kindness, which are crucial weapons one would need for staving off cynicism in his circumstances—as if he has survived thanks more to connection and kindness than paranoia and isolation. (If we want to be saccharine about it, he scans quite poignantly as a member of the Mighty Nein.)

So it is easy to imagine this trust and openness as a natural progression of his initial search for perspectives external to his own cultural knowledge. Though he makes those first connections with the Assembly to try to vindicate his personal hypotheses, he finds in them exposure to the deepest corruption among Exandrian mortals, which could've—and did, for a time—turned him further down that same dark path.

But it's also this same openness to exposure from the wider world that allows the Nein to influence him for the better, and in spite of the challenges he's certainly faced simply surviving over the past seven years, he seems to have held onto this openness enough to move through the world with self-assurance and a willingness to extend the kinds of trust and good will that he has been shown.

(I would be remiss not to mention that I was reminded about my thoughts on this by this lovely post from sky-scribbles and their use in the tags of 'light' to describe Essek's demeanor this episode, which is really such an apt word for it.)

[freakyficsforfuglyvillains]

Intimacy HC’s

🪳❤️Maxime Le Mal🪳❤️

(Barely) SFW

If you ask Maxime what sort of partner he is; he would confidently describe himself as an attentive lover.

Well, if “attentive” is his way of saying “clingy,” then let’s just say: it's a very apt descriptor.

Maxime is one handsy dude. He loves physical intimacy and takes every chance he can get to show you just how much he adores you, both in private and public. Whether you want him to or not. Simply put: he has no shame.

Maxime is a suave, boisterous supervillain who does what he wants and does it in style. For him, a simple peck on the cheek just doesn’t cut it. He’d rather pepper you with smooches while he showers you with compliments, Pepe Le Pew style.

You bet he asks for “just-for-good-luck” kisses before going on heists. There have been several instances where he’s halfway out the roach-mobile when he suddenly— and loudly— gasps because he realises what he’s forgotten to do.

He’s a devastatingly good kisser. He’s got it down to a formula. Sometimes you can even tell what sort of mood he’s in based on the technique he uses. Here’s a tip; If he’s heavy with the tongue, it’s safe to assume wants to take you somewhere more private. If he bites? Oh, It’s going down. There’s no room to negotiate.

If you’re out in public with him, his hand is on some part of your body. When he doesn’t have his arm wrapped around your waist or slung over your shoulder, he’s holding your hand. You’ve noticed he’ll occasionally kiss your hand too. Especially if you’re in the presence of other villains.

Maxime might be half-roach, but he’s a cuddle-bug through and through. His hugs are beyond comfy too, thanks to his big, puffy coat. If he’s sitting down and you just happen to be within reach, he’ll just pull you into his lap. He says it’s “like fishing.“

After a particularly long day, Maxime drapes himself over you with a dramatic sigh. Before you get the chance to ask him what’s wrong, he launches into a tirade, bemoaning those who dared slight or inconvenience him. You can’t help but find it a little bit cute.

[justablah56]

forever thinking about Dani's nat 20 insight check on Maxim in s3 ep7 I think and Austin being like this man is an absolute wreck who is using magical duct tape on half of these projects he is the least organized person ever and he is clearly jumping from project to project as soon as he gets bored and his entire collected serious vibe is complete bullshit . it's so good guys .

[prissnukem]

[luzriels]

the rings of power summer celebration 2024 - week 1, characters MAXIM BALDRY as ISILDUR in the rings of power » 1.03

[spiralinaa]

you draw maxime so freaking well oh my goodness he's so babygirl, you really draw his cockroach form so goodly

Hehheheh thankkssss I'm trying to do my best hehheh☺

Angry roach

[aguatala]

tfw you come together and maximize ur joint hella good genes slay

the result of that joint slay:

[k00ldino]

hahaha oh my gosh i wasn't expecting it to be taken seriously - i'm flattered!!! Insector it is!!!! 🙈💖💖

i think insector is a perfect ship name for them!!

[starleska]

Maxime's transformation in HD...for those of you who want to know what all the bug-related fuss is about 😉🪳💚