a soft cozy life

turning the life i am living into the life i want to live. books -- art -- games -- journaling.

[katherine40598583-blog]

I’ve just scrolled past who am I kidding, stared for 5 minutes straight at a series of gifs of Colin and Pen making out in the carriage and the next post was that meme with Colin and the sex workers and it hit me - and hear me out, - what if they showed us Colin’s, ahem, adventures (which I’m probably the only person in the fandom not hating) to highlight the contrast between his lack of excitement there and being completely lost in it with Pen?

[sunsetcurbed]

x

[thisaccounthatesfascists]

TL asleep? cool.

(long post, strap in)

i wanna talk about colin's wet dream. that was the most demisexual shit i have EVER seen. there's not even any sex. its just a romanticized, elevated version of their first kiss. its colin's subconscious wanting to replay the moment he fell in love with his best friend in the Most way possible.

lets break it down:

we got the same location of their first kiss. Complete with mood lighting and a fog machine. It’s giving pride and prejudice 2005

Penelope comes out (looking gorgeous, of course) to their rendezvous spot, which has been previously agreed on.

colin thanks her for meeting him, she doesn't know why he's asked her to come

he confesses his feelings for her

she reciprocates (this is the important part of this to me. ) her wanting him, makes him want her more (do you see where the demisexual colin energy is coming from? do you understand?)

they make out

he kisses her neck as she pants his name over and over (see my point above re: her wanting him makes him want her more)

he wakes up, absolutely shook

this is an idealized reimagining for colin: during their first kiss he was basically in shock, his new personality chokes on the reality and vulnerability of the moment

in the book he talks about how he tries to think of something witty to say but finds that no words are necessary, and there's no combination of witty banter or suave bravado that could help in that moment. the rake persona that he has put on up to this point absolutely fails him. but here, in this dream, words are crucial, the declarations of love are why its sexy! (demi colin is canon idc idc)

and its so important that this wet dream, the idealized version of this scenario happens like this. because we've also seen colin having sex with sex workers (and luke newton has talked about this) but his energy in those scenes is very detached, very focused on him and his pleasure with zero connection to the women he's with. he has two different threesomes (if you can even call the second one that, he's barely even looking at them) with four different women and we know nothing about these girls. they don't even get names. they don't matter, and its simply not. as. good. as the feeling of kissing pen. there is no connection

which is, i think, why he taps out during the threesome in ep4. he tries to go back to the devil-may-care attitude toward sex and intimacy that he had before kissing pen, he tries to return to that mask he put on of "the rake" and it just doesn't work! he feels nothing! in fact he feels disdain for the position he's in and the choices he's made!

the threesome in ep4 mirrors the outburst he has later at the club really well. like he's so frustrated with this position he's put himself in, the men he's surrounded himself with. he literally says "none of you are gentlemen!" "you're actually gross and disrespectful!"

a line that i love is :

"... it is tiring, is it not? The necessity imposed on us to remain cavalier about the one thing in life that holds genuine meaning. Do you not find it lonely?"

and they laugh! in! his! face! because these are men that feel perfectly fine sleeping with strangers and bragging about their "conquests" to their buddies

but that is not who colin is! he's still very young. and his experience with marina (who tried to seduce him and it didn't work, imo bc he just didn't feel that passion, that love that makes his relationship with penelope so different) has left him jaded, but not nearly as jaded as he wants to believe. even if he wants to be casual about romance and sex, he just isn't. this man proposed to marina after knowing her for what? a couple weeks? He is an All or Nothing type of guy. He has that Bridgerton 'when i fall in love i will only ever talk about my spouse' Gene

Now: some costuming details that i love:

Her hair:

(i know this is a stretch but go with me here) her hair is in slightly tighter curls than we've seen this season, which to me seems like a nod to colin liking (or at least not minding) her hair the way it was in previous seasons and maybe not caring as much as we might think about her transformation. but its still down and flowy and in line with her new style

let's talk about this! dress! (it has genuinely been keeping me up at night)

the sleeves seem much more similar to the silhouettes of her costumes in previous seasons, not necessarily in shape but in style

the sleeves are bulkier, compared to this season's costumes, which while they might have been the same size and shape, they are made of much lighter material, giving the silhouette a softer, more mature feeling.

compare it to this dress from s3 ep2: it looks very similar with the sleeve shape and the floral appliqués, but in the dress in the image above, the appliqués are much more obvious, closer to penelope's style under her mother's tastes

the point i'm trying to make here will be made more clear in a sec. what I am NOT trying to say that colin prefers her in her little girl dresses with loud designs, bright colors, and silly hairdos. he just associates those bigger, brighter, louder style choices with penelope.

And he has always liked Penelope. Even when he didn’t take her seriously as a potential partner, he always saw her as an equal. He never made fun of her silly dresses and questionable hair choices.

This has nothing to do with Colin but i feel like i should point it out:

there is something to be said about how her muted pastel color palette along with the more demure style that she has adopted shows that she is trying to Show Up with this social season, but as a wallflower, she is shy. she's always hated those brightly colored dresses her mother put her in, because no matter how close to the wall she clung, she was always visible. she was always vulnerable to ridicule.

but i don't think colin knows or realizes this because why would he think critically about the specific style changes she's made. and he probably doesn't really make the connection of the influence her mother has on her clothing. and around him, pen has never seemed all that shy. she's been confident and witty. if you pair her personality that shines around colin with her louder outfits, it seems more congruous

(take the scene from season 2 where we get the line "My purpose shall set me free") this is a side of penelope that no one, not even eloise!, sees

what his subconscious knows is that he associates pen with vibrant, textured, and often 3-dimensional outfits, and his subconscious creates a dress that fits her new style, with a little more of that featherington flair thrown in.

the fucking tie in front: i feel like this is a very clear reference/ foreshadowing to the mirror scene

for those of you who haven't read the book, the mirror scene doesn't actually happen, but colin tells penelope about a fantasy he has about touching her in front of a mirror

this is a pretty small offhand comment made while they're having sex for the first time but amongst book fans the scene has become pretty fleshed out i think, with fanfics especially

because the idea that it touches on is colin fantasizing about penelope seeing herself the way he does, as sexy and desirable (he seriously cares about her pleasure so much its sickening, I'm actually sick)

and although Book Colin doesn't mention it, the idea of him undressing her in front of a mirror has become a popular story set-up

i think the tie in the front sort of plays on the time period sensibilities of propriety: this is a time where in "good" society an unmarried man and woman would never touch skin to skin, its why all the women wear gloves most of the time. its why the scenes in season 1 between daphne and simon play on the excitement of removing the gloves: its a taboo thing

this is unrelated to this post but i need an explanation as to why pen isn't wearing gloves in a lot of her scenes this season, like the scandal that that would cause??? I'm assuming its representative of her growing into her sexuality; and bridgerton is a fantasy, not a historical nonfiction, but like some consistency would be nice guys bc i was so confused abt all the skin-on-skin contact happening. even with Francesca and Lord Samadani WHEN HE KISSES HER BARE HAND I WAS SO UNCOMFORTABLE FOR HER. especially because of all the glove-related tension in s1. but i digress.

so the tie in front is sort of a dare. even though its clearly an addition, and untying wouldn't actually remove her dress, its her (colin's subconscious version of her anyway) way of saying: "you could untie this, you could undress me if you wanted to" "i love you" "i want you"

and i think that's beautiful. this season is great and i will die on this hill.

If you've made it this far, congrats! you're just as feral as me! come and gnaw on the drywall with me while i post fanfics inspired by this season: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55988977/chapters/142190584

chapters 1+2 of my new fic are up

photos are from : https://www.cap-that.com/bridgerton/302/index.php?image=bridgerton3x02_1502.jpg

[himbo-buckley]

Penelope reading Colin to filth in front of god, the queen and the ton is kinda funny though

He really went on a whole trip across Europe to reinvent himself as a charming and mysterious ladiesman only for her to go: What a poser. He’s still a nerd. Hashtag not my Colin

[alwaysalir]

Can we talk about the first kiss because it was soooo fucking good. I have seen critiques about Penelope begging Colin but I feel like if you’re just focused on that, you’re kind of missing what this means. In the previous season, we have seen moments where she has this opportunity to open up to Colin but she shuts it down and never says how she feels. So much about part one was about Colin figuring out his feelings, but in this one moment, it was about Penelope voicing her needs. I also think the fact that she felt comfortable asking him for this, just speaks to the intimacy of their relationship before it gets romantic. It takes a great amount of trust to even be able to ask him to do this.

Colin gently approaches and he gives her a soft peck. I think Luke Newton even said it was framed in a way that it could have ended there but they go back in and Colin’s expressions are sooo good. You can see how into the moment he is.

For Penelope, it was so important for her to say what she wants, but for Colin it was sooooo important for him to experience this type of intimacy with someone he actually cares about. We know up until this point he’s only experienced this kind of intimacy with women who he has no feelings for. It always been super casual. this moment, forces him to realize that sexual intimacy does not need to leave him feeling lonely and distant that it can have a deeper meaning and invoke actual feelings of passion 

I think one of my favorite parts in this is after her Penelope pulls away from the kiss they both just stay in the embrace for a couple beats. The intimacy of that moment is so beautiful and really shows how deeply affected they both are by the kissand neither one of them can just end it.

After Penelope finally pulls away we are left with Colin who been shookth to his core by a kiss. Everything about this scene was exactly what I wanted. not only is it beautiful and intimate, but it allows both Colin and Penelope to grow as individual characters 

[lunamoeba]

Good day to say a big FUCK YOU to netflix for canceling Julie and the Phantoms. Absolutely unforgivable

[queerism1969]

[quijotine]

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS VERSION OF SUKI OMG

bbygirl tried to flirt with sokka by showing him cool warrior moves and he is SO intimidated by her omg i love themm.m

[kat-rose-griffith]

I liked it better when Katara released Aang from his 100 year slumber through the pure unfiltered rage of a feminist rant at her brother

[moominirl]

[peacozy]

I do not respect the grind. Go to bed

[pixelated-blood-cells]

i genuinely hate the culture tiktok has created around books and keeping them looking like they’ve never been touched

all those beautiful words that you pretend are unbeknownst to you

i love breaking spines and dog earing pages and loving a book so thoroughly that you can see the love in all its creases and rips and coffee and tear stains

[rosarrie]

bonked his nose

[mostlyghostie]

Off to buy a pile of books in the sales, I think I have £30 of Waterstones points to spend after my gift buying earlier in the month.

What are you planning to read this year?

Instagram / Shop

[soft-lovely]

dreaming of a home library...

[evilwizard]

never has there been a series with more underutilized background lore than the Chronicles of Narnia. book one establishes that there exists a world-between-the-worlds, an infinite glade that can be accessed only via ancient Atlantean magic, fractaling in all directions with infinite crystal-clear pools of water representing the various dimensions of the multiverse—dimensions which contain realms of gods and technology, and magic of various types, and different magical systems for each dimension, and dead worlds, and worlds that have not yet sprung to life, and a million other wonders. book two has a talking beaver

[astrantiia]

book haul ✨⚔️🐉🔮