#PenFeth

[reloha]

Eloise feels bad that Whistledown wrote bad things about Penelope. But Whistledown is Penelope.

[reloha]

It is accurate to say Kate and Anthony had sex or even kissed while he was engaged to Edwina. Anon may think what they did was as bad, but if that’s the case, why did they feel the need to make things up?

And this: marina end up very well thansk to stupid daphne. So she would have been ruined by Penelope if Daphne hadn’t stepped in? So why are you giving the credit to Penelope? She was very willing to ruin her friends.

As for Eloise, Penelope revealed something she knew could make her be excluded, punished by authorities, she and her family. AND had the audacity to say Eloise talks, but never tries to do something about it (Girl, you totally stopped her from actually trying to do something, don't be a hypocrite).

This.

Penelope as LW NEVER RUINED AYONE`S LIVE!!! marina end up very well thansk to stupid daphne. Eloise is safe in her rich well looking shit family. its so funny that you are so moral about pen writting gossip about people but you are so in love with a couple WHO CHEAT ON THE WOMANS SISTER FOR GODS SAKE!!!! poor edwina find out in the wedding her sister ans groom were fucking. Kate actng all angsty about her sister but they go ans kiss and fuck that man. They are cheaters and you love them.

Keep telling yourself that. I feel you've been sending that ask to others as well, and perhaps others in my box. Sad, so very sad. In fact, like the show version of your favorite.

Once again, it was something that wasn't in the book. In the book, there is not that kind of love triangle, Edwina is all for Kanthony.

If i have to defend the show, I'd say Edwina and Anthony were not engaged because of love, they chose each other because they thought they'd be a good match. Feelings weren't truly involved. Edwina feeling betrayed is legitimate, but her feelings are more based on a fairy tale she wants to live and that could go with any other gentle man than love for Anthony.

Love can happen, and well, Kate and Anthony kissed and made love, and that was something they could not control. It was never to hurt Edwina, and they wanted to keep her happy with what she wanted. But sometimes, feelings are stronger than duty, and Edwina saw with that look they shared both were in love. I think she was angrier at not knowing it and being kept blind, and not because she was in love with Anthony.

Cheating before a wedding of convenience and spreading secrets for what is convenient for one's gains are absolutely not on the same level. The first is private, the latter is public, and has thus more important consequences.

Kate was ready to leave if Edwina could have that fairy tale, even when she knew she loved Anthony. She wanted the best for her sister..Did Penelope step back so that Marina could have a life with a man of her choosing? No, she went all "I've raised you high, but now I'm going to dig your grave so that you won't have Colin".

But I see you wanted Marina to be miserable, as you added "thanks to stupid Daphne". Like "how dare she try to take Colin, when Penelope has a crush on him!" News flash, just because Penelope wants Colin doesn't mean he's hers and should be ashamed for not wanting her.

As for Eloise, Penelope revealed something she knew could make her be excluded, punished by authorities, she and her family. AND had the audacity to say Eloise talks, but never tries to do something about it (Girl, you totally stopped her from actually trying to do something, don't be a hypocrite). Far worse than Penelope overhearing Colin saying to à group of gentlemen he wouldn't court her, which only dims her marriage prospects, but not her status as a priviledged one (because yes, she is. Also, it doesn't happen like that in the show).

Penelope is no moral compass. She shouldn't be. She points fingers and yes, does ruin lives by writing her little anonymous articles, but for the moment, that's all she does.

[reloha]

When Eloise wanted to protect Penelope, she risked her own neck. When Penelope wanted to protect Eloise, she risked Eloise's neck too.

And heart.

Eloise Protecting Pen Vs Pen "Protecting" Eloise. A Contrast.

Both seasons of Bridgerton ends with either Eloise or Penelope "protecting" the other from the queen.

Season 1 ends with Eloise sneaking out from Daphne's ball in order to hinder an attempt to reveal LW. She does so because she thinks that she has convinced LW to take back the damaging stuff she said about Marina and Pen's family. Although she was mistaken as to LW's identity, the fact it was Pen all along did mean she was saved.

So Eloise's motive was to protect Pen, and the outcome was that Pen was protected, and Eloise decided to risk herself in order to protect Pen. She risked the queen's wrath, when she knew the queen was determined to unveil LW. None of this mattered. She wanted to help her friend and this was the way to do it.

When Pen decided to "protect" Eloise, she did so by taking information given to her in trust, exposing it to the entire world in the most inflammatory terms possible, and then played the victim when Eloise found out.

Penelope did this instead of coming forward as LW, having dismissed the suggestion out of hand on the flimsy reasoning that the Queen "might not believe her", even though Pen has accomplices to back her up.

She does this instead of writing favourable things about the Queen, because she doesn't want to change what she writes to protect her friend. She does this instead of telling Eloise so she and Eloise can make a plan together, because she doesn't want Eloise to know about LW, possibly because she's scared of Eloise "taking over".

All of this Penelope prioritised avoiding over not causing Eloise pain.

When Eloise wanted to protect Penelope, she risked her own neck. When Penelope wanted to protect Eloise, she risked Eloise's neck too.

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Yeah, Claire is cool. I like all the actors on Bridgerton. It’s not the actress playing Penelope who’s the issue.

why she cant call kate a beast???' i hate how POC keep saying they want equally rights and al but then you cant complain about not getting a job becasue of diversity shit if you are white, or you cant call somone a beast if it is brown. You will keep hating Pen even if she was and angel, just because you all are fatphobics. SAD SAD world.

If Eloise has the right to not listen to Pen warning, edwina had the right to not listening kate making of her telling anthony was not a good match but not saying she wanted him for herself. You all prasing cheaters and villanasing the only plus size woman is disgusting

This says a hell of a lot more about you than it does about me. There's a reason you're not saying this off anon.

ALSO A PERSON IS NEVER AN IT

And on the topic of the s2 love triangle, Anthony was just as much to blame for that mess if not more but he's conveniently the only party that gets a free pass from the fandom whereas both Kate and Edwina have been torn to shreds since the day the season dropped. I have my issues with the writing of s2, I don't like that they changed Anthony's brief interest of Edwina as a potential bride in the books into a full-blown love triangle in s2. I think it was detrimental to all 3 characters involved. It was a huge disservice to all three characters.

Also, y'all do know that this is just one show? This wasn't even Nicola's big break, her big break was Derry Girls. Now I have widely different feelings about Claire and Penelope despite the fact that they're physically the same person, its almost like the writing for them both made the difference. Oh wait, that's exactly what happened.

[reloha]

@brekker-by-brekkerr: #the way this show is like boo hoo pen is kind of overlooked and lonely and that's worse than marina and cressida being forced into marriage#with creepy old men who want to SA them

There's no way you can convince me the writing for Eloise in part 2 of season 3 was good.

We're expected to believe that Eloise Bridgerton, who gets so upset about injustices to women, who cares deeply for her friends, would hear about Cressida's issues and be like "hmm yeah sucks to suck."

And people can't say it's because Eloise is only concerned with herself because we've seen her get so upset about the plight of other people, we've seen her going and engaging with conversations outside her circle, we've seen her empathizing with Theo and his circumstances, we've seen her trying to hunt down LW to help Pen back before she knew the truth.

JUST THIS SEASON we saw Eloise go to Cressida's house to check on her because she noticed that she was acting off. So you can't even tell me Eloise doesn't care about her. I feel like the writers are trying to gaslight the viewers in part 2 to thinking Eloise didn't ever care that much about Cressida when WE LITERALLY SAW THAT SHE DID. Cressida even says Eloise was a great friend to her.

Yeah, I understand that Eloise has a lot going on right now, and so to some extent, I could see her not being as present for Cressida as she needs. That happens. But the level to which they made Eloise act like she doesn't care is so insane and is clearly just to prop Pen up.

Eloise heard Cressida tell her about her circumstances so she should understand why she's doing what she's doing.

It just felt like such an insane 180 for Eloise to turn around and suddenly be like "Cressida is a viper" and "our friendship was falling apart anyway" and "I should never have trusted her," when the last thing we saw before part 2 was them BEING GOOD FRIENDS!! And when Cressida hadn't done anything bad, she just claimed to be LW RIGHT AFTER she had explained to Eloise how messed up her circumstances were and that she needed help getting out of them.

I get that the show was going to put Eloise and Pen back together because they have such a clear bias towards her character, but did they have to decimate Creloise in the process? Is Eloise not allowed to have multiple friendships?

Like, Pen can do all these terrible things and cry and be like "sorry about that" and it's fine El and her can be besties everyone will love her and forgive her. But Cressida was sometimes mean (and the show goes to lengths to show us how she became that way, even explicitly spelling it out with her mother's comments about how she raised her to believe in "every woman for herself" AND shows Cressida acknowledging her mistakes and showing true change and growth) and lies about being LW and she's dragged through the dirt, she's "the absolute worst," every single character says awful things about her while we see snippets of her in this dark awful house with her life falling apart and this is supposed to be something we root for?? Literally why. Why even make Cressida sympathetic if this is what you're going to do with her.

It feels so out of pocket for Eloise to be saying Cressida is soo horrible and etc. etc. when we SAW their friendship before. We saw Cressida taking in what Eloise was saying and making changes, we saw Cressida challenging Eloise's beliefs and making Eloise self-reflect. Eloise got a peek into how awful Cressida's home life was and into the kind of good person Cressida could be and that's just suddenly thrown out the window with such little support to back it up.

Even if Creloise just HAD to stop being friends, weren't there better ways of going about it? Couldn't they at least have waited till after the fake LW paper came out bashing the Bridgertons for Eloise to break off the friendship? Yes, that was Cressida's mom writing that, but Eloise wouldn't know that and that would more logically line up with Eloise's random coldness towards her.

Still, why exactly do they have to stop being friends? Why can't Eloise have different kinds of friendships, especially one like hers with Cressida that challenged her, one where they mutually helped each other become better people? I love that Eloise is going to go off on this adventure to Scotland and meet other people but could she not also have retained her friendship with Cressida??

I would have loved to see the Eloise I know and love in part 2 teaming up with Cressida to help her, scheming together, doing everything in her power to help her bestie because that's who she is. That's what we should have seen. Maybe it would take her a second to get there, since she was already wrapped up in the drama with her brother and Pen, but she wouldn't just completely brush off her friend. She would do something.

And I could go on about how messed up it was for the writers to make it pretty clear how bad things have become for Cressida and then make her face the most consequences ever, while Pen gets to ride off into the sunset all happily ever after despite doing things 1000x worse than anything Cressida ever did. I'm actually disgusted.

[reloha]

@sukibenders: #i was basically summarizing points but you get it#bc the whole 180 from how lw was viewed in early seasons & queen charlotte#vs in s3 reads so much as fan service and fave character of the director behind the scenes or something#like everything about it felt so stupid#and big eye roll behavior to eloise & colin trying win their case with “but being ignored hurts!' which it does but 1.) that's not an excuse#to hurt others especially making a profit over it & 2.) why should cressida care when she's about to be sold!?#and the way so many characters were characterized just so pen could be easily forgiven and have her shine (even pen herself) 🙄

Bridgerton in s1, s2, and the spinoff essentially: LW has done nothing helpful, she only adds harm to society's reputations, especially that of women and young girls who have little means of ways to protect themselves. It's why so many are scared that their every move is being watched. It's very evident that, whoever she is, has nothing better to do and probably wouldn't be accepted or forgiven by the Ton if their identity was revealed.

Bridgerton s3, for some reason: Oh LW is amazing (because it's Penelope) and is a true testament to how someone can overcome such harsh trials and come out on top (because, of course, being "ignored" gives you the right to weaponize your power and privileges to harm others, even those who you've never spoken too, just because you want to be seen, even though you hide behind an anonymous gossip sheet). Some people should even be jealous of the feats she's overcome (because, yes, it perfectly makes sense for a feminist character to be jealous of someone who's only used their power to hurt women and young girls for some cash and entertainment, totally makes sense).

[reloha]

@astridthevalkyrie: #i have separate opinions on polin and why pen does actually deserve better but that's a story for another day#bridgerton#anti penelope featherington#<- again not really but still critique of her

the fandom don’t care about baby trapping bc why are they making fics and saying pen shoulve trapped Colin as joke? But when Marina was doing for her survival it was she’s the devil so see how it was never about Colin or wanting him not to be trapped and more so about them hating Marina bc she was taking away their little self insert girl crush like pen they was just jealous and bitter insecure girls! Bc wdym it’s fine if pen babytraps colin and he would’ve liked it 😂 oh polin so unserious

i mean like, fandom makes jokes i don't think that's a bad thing, even if they write it that's fine, but yeah if they do it and simultaneously think marina is the devil it's mmmm.

and of course there's self inserting into pen. but that's not bad either! i self insert into pen too, her scenes at the balls and parties are like man :/ being ignored and shunned and treated poorly at large events sucks majorly, having your mom constantly treat you like that sucks majorly too. i think people self insert into all the characters—daphne for wanting to be a mom, fran for preferring the quiet, kate and anthony for their older sibling plights, so on and so forth.

the thing is when it comes to characters like penelope, or even less bookish characters like mcu wanda or regina from ouat, is that fans relating to them leads to "this character did nothing wrong because society/other characters fucked them over first." and just to be clear, that's fine. i know a lot of people say "you can love a character but you have to acknowledge their flaws" ehhhh. idk. if you're just into a show for fun you shouldn't have to acknowledge a character's flaws to enjoy them. you kinda just can, it doesn't mean you agree with them whether you explain yourself or not.

but then it goes a step further into hate for other characters and that's when i get annoyed. i don't care that people love penelope, i dislike that i can't look at any bridgerton opinions without seeing blatant hate and misunderstanding of eloise and marina. i don't care that ouat fans love regina, i dislike the absolute insane takes on snow and emma twisting things around to make them the villains.

and when it comes to penelope specifically, yeah, her ending arc is very underwhelming. nothing happens which begs the question why she couldn't simply come forward last year when eloise was threatened or why she couldn't let eloise pretend to be LW for the queen's benefit. but even that is fine. it's fucking bridgerton, i didn't expect her to get consequences. my biggest problem besides fans' villainizing everyone but her, is that her redemption arc is sorely missing one thing—apologizing to marina. the actress couldn't come back, that's fine! just show pen writing a letter to her too when she wrote to violet and the queen. that is the biggest problem i have because penelope was a teenager when she revealed marina's secret. she was immature and childish and it's understandable, but she should apologize now that she's matured and understands that was wrong.

also maybe not punishing cressida for trying to escape marriage to an old man. idk.

[reloha]

There needs to be more discourse on Penelope Featherington and Dan Humphrey, I think. But, also, maybe I’m forgetting something, but is Penelope funny?

This is my last post on why Penelope Featherington is trash for today because I have a virtual movie night to get ready for. But before that, I had a comment exchange with a TikTok creator who said that people aren't mad at Penelope for what she wrote, they're mad because she stepped out of line as the fat, funny friend.

That doesn't make me angry, it honestly just makes me really sad. If I only hate Penelope because she didn't play her role as the fat, funny friend then why don't I love Dan Humphrey who behaved in very similar ways? Seriously, I started out loving Dan but when I rewatched the show with the knowledge that he was Gossip Girl I saw him and his relationships differently. It all felt so opportunistic and cruel. A bully is still a bully even when they wear a larger dress size.

People whose defense of Penelope's behavior amounts to, "but she's plus-sized," honestly make me worry about their so-called friends a bit.

[reloha]

Well, Colin, since you asked, let me tell you. Pull up a chair.

Colin: What could Penelope possibly have done to warrant such maltreatment?

Colin, you're going to find out.

[reloha]

Yes, and she just prints what she hears. She has no means of checking whether anything is true.

didnt she also say something nasty about the queen when one of her kids had just died

Yeah here's part 2 of this

The way she talked about the death of Queen Charlotte's granddaughter; Princess Charlotte, who was historically only twenty-one when she died in childbirth. The Lady Whistledown commentary in QC is just outright cruel, it's clear Queen Charlotte in the off-season (QC present day timeline being set in the Winter/Early spring break between season 2 & 3) becomes Penelope's biggest target in the aftermath of her fallout with Eloise. There's no other way to describe it.

Ngl the above is really disturbing to me. She's angry at Eloise, has lost access to info from the Bridgertons because of her falling out with Eloise, and she's angry at the Queen for getting angry at Penelope's own words as LW, and trying to discover LW as a result. And so she spends the off-season insulting and attacking a grieving Queen Charlotte. I mean that's one way for a flower to bloom I guess...

Theo, one of the only working class characters in the show, nearly lost his job because of lady whistledown and may have lost it in the aftermath of the season.

A lot of her general commentary as Lady Whistledown isn't clever or witty; it's just outright cruel.

The way she talks about the Bridgerton family, a family that trusts and cares for her, is horrible. Particularly, the way she wrote about Daphne in season 1.

Betraying Eloise's trust for two entire seasons because it didn't start with the Theo situation. She listened to Eloise's frustrations about Daphne and then used LW to attack and belittle Daphne. Speaking as a sibling, I will rant about my sisters until kingdom come to my friends but the minute a so-called friend starts publicly attacking my sister, it's over. I would not be in control of my actions. Like over the course of two seasons, she's attacked and nearly destroyed the reputations of Eloise's eldest sister, two of her brothers, her first love, and the entire family as a result. Judging by the Bridgertons were born to shine line in the trailer, I doubt Francesca will make it through the season unscathed.

She hasn't felt real remorse. Despite nearly causing Marina's death (as she tried to miscarry in the aftermath of LW revealing her pregnancy), she ends season 1 smirking about being LW. Hasn't written or contacted Marina to see how she has been since, got jealous Colin went to see her and still probably hasn't written or visited her. Not to mention her "I least did something. All you did is talk" speech at the end of season 2 to Eloise. A speech that wasn't even accurate as Eloise had been to meetings, listened to speeches and debates, debated with Theo, shared and read and discussed different political leaflets with Theo, Eloise had grown intellectually from the beginning to the end of the season. It's because of Penelope that that came to an end.

Outside of rescuing Daphne from her betrothel to Berbrooke in s1, what good has her work as LW actually done? It's ruined far more lives than it's helped, and intervened countless times when it didn't have authority to. Many secrets weren't Penelope's to tell.

I could honestly keep going but I genuinely don't know how she's supposed to get redeemed in eight episodes because the character we have at the minute in no way deserves a happy ending. LW didn't really matter in the books as it wasn't as active a plot point as it is in the show. By expanding the LW concept to give Penelope a more complex arc, they've unwittingly robbed her of what made people like her book counterpart and as a result created a villain that they have no intention of trying to redeem, because they don't believe she needs to be redeemed.

[reloha]

@dusty-daydreams: #Penelope’s story is interesting if she is a villain#and allowed to be a villain#and is redeemed from being a villain#but no#Penelope is a good girl who is allowed to act out by ruining people’s lives#because she *checks notes* doesn’t get as much attention as she would like

Yes, of course, not everyone has exploited their friends' personal business and sex lives, as well as that of many others, slutshaming, calling POC racial slurs, publicly, FOR PROFIT then playing the victim and decrying that it was something great when getting called out on your shit. That's not sending a regrettable text it's cyberbullying. It's having the ethical integrity of cotton candies. The scope is way off base here honey.

[reloha]

Can’t wait to see all the takes about how Eloise has “height privilege”!

The power of a look! Make her quiver, Eloise, make her tremble!

[reloha]

Also so tired of people saying Eloise is more privileged. Penelope literally lives across the street from her, not down by the docks. Eloise is the one who feels awkward about being forced to talk with people (until season 3, apparently), which made her connection with Theo particularly important, but Penelope has the privilege of maintaining her connection with Colin whether he is romantically interested or not, and she worked to separate her “friend” from Theo.

Sorry. I may be getting a little off track.

I've talked about this before but where are people getting the idea that Penelope has to run Lady Whistledown because she's working class like Theo and trying to support herself? I get that not everyone's memory is freakish like mine, but, she grew up with servants. Her sister was a debutant. Her family isn't Bridgerton rich, but they had money until her father died.

For all that I dislike Penelope, I can see that Portia is an awful mother. But despite belittling Penelope she's given no indication that she's kicking her out anytime soon. So since LW began pre-father's death, there wasn't really a monetary need to become Lady Whistledown.

[reloha]

Penelope wants to have Eloise back but keep Whistledown too. She still thinks she is justified. She doesn’t care that she effectively separated Eloise and Theo; she just cares that Eloise spends time with Cressida now and not her.

But Penelope was often impatient with Eloise and her enthusiasms when she had her. She didn’t like her interruptions, especially of any conversation with Colin (but would never share how she felt about Colin with her best friend). She used Whistledown to both woo Eloise and cast her down, dispensing of her rival, Theo. Cressida should take care.

Penelope would not have forgiven Eloise if she separated her and Colin the way that Penelope separated Eloise and Theo.

Penelope wants to have Eloise back but keep Whistledown too. If she has the chance of getting Colin too, she would go for that too. Debling would have been good precisely because he is gone so much, since she doesn’t appear to want to give it up. “I gave it up for you,” she tells Eloise during their breakup scene. She doesn’t stick to it and probably wouldn’t have stuck to it if Eloise hadn’t figured things out. Giving it up might have shown something like remorse.

Here's the thing.

Penelope's apologies weren't genuine.

She was saying sorry because she wanted Eloise as a friend back and thought "sorry" was the way to get that.

But at the end of the episode she gets right back to her old tricks.

When Eloise asked her if she was sorry for what she did, or sorry for getting caught, she hit the nail on the head.

Penelope wasn't sorry for what she did. She was sorry that she was facing consequences for what she did.

[reloha]

Although the audience feels that Eloise is more privileged to have her family rather than the Featheringtons, and in some ways this is true, Eloise has not had an easy time. She most likely saw her father dead in the garden at quite a young age. She heard her mother’s screams in a difficult childbirth from which Violet almost died. Eloise feels that she disappoints Violet just by coming in a room. People always say Eloise is blind to her privilege, but she and Benedict are the only ones in her family who seem to interrogate their privilege, and he is in a much better position to do something about it. Also, judging by my recent excursions into the YouTube comments, among other places, Penelope as a fictional character appears to possess audience privilege.

A lot of conversations about privilege in this fandom are frankly very shallow because in the Ton everyone is some flavor of privilege. Yes, women don't enjoy the freedom men do and I'm not buying that racism evaporated but by virtue of being in the Ton they're all privileged.

So, since Eloise is privileged because she has a loving family by that logic isn't Penelope more privileged than Cressida? For all Lady Featherington's obvious flaws, she never would've pawned her off on a creepy old man for the sake of having her married.

[reloha]

More than that, but Edwina even struck up a friendly conversation with Penelope and seemed to be wanting to befriend her, but Penelope ended the conversation quickly and went off to talk with Colin.

Relationships free of conflict don't exist, but can you truly be someone's best friend if you've spent years resenting them for everything they have?