Okay. We need to talk about this because moment. Not in a show context (it is a beautiful and wonderful moment for the character, and I'm saving that discussion for later...) but in a fandom context. Because I think it perfectly encapsulates something that I think maybe other fans and other parts of fandom don't necessarily understand when it comes to Pen (and Colin and Polin).
Penelope has never been the cool character. She's awkward, and shy, and has faults, and doesn't always make the right choice. She's kind of a weirdo, and says the wrong thing at the wrong time, and gets easily excited and stressed and embarrassed.
Colin has never been a cool character, either. He makes ridiculous jokes based on puns, and gives silly faces, and contemplates blades of grass. He's odd in his attempts at flirting, cries when he's upset, and delights in talking about cheese with his brother-in-laws.
Polin isn't the cool ship. Saphne, Kathany, and even Benophie are cool. Saphne has a certain grace and prestige about them. Kathany is hot and smoldering. Benophie is lustful and sexy.
And Polin, at their core, is still this ::
And you know what -- it's why we love them. A lot of people look at them and are like, ew, gross. They don't fit whatever the 'cool' or 'hot' ideal is for these romance shows. Which.... leads me to the photos above - of Penelope looking at herself in the mirror.
Other fans, other fandoms, they see the girl on the left and don't get it. Don't think that girl can be sexy or should be loved or whatever it is they think is the problem.
Polins look at the girl on the left and see that's who Penelope is. And even if she changes to the one on the right, we still love her. Still love who she was and who she is.
And I think it speaks to who people in fandom are, too. Polins - a lot of Polins - are the girl on left. Or we have been, even if we moved over to being the girl on the right. We're dorky and weird and easily excitable. We create things and make Polin weeks, and do art as Polin imagined as bunnies, and write fic putting them in every scenario imaginable. We make silly jokes and spend months photoshopping a single photo of a baby into ninteen-hundred photosets. We do what fandoms usually do and fandom.
And I feel like sometimes some of these other subsets get so caught up on the image problem -- on whether it's telling the correct kind of story, or what people look like, or how many hits some hot take is going to get you on a social media platform. And instead of curating a space for themselves, instead of allowing themselves to just forget being cool for a moment, they wallow in false competitions and get caught up in superficial arguments.
And, I mean, not every trope is going to hit the same way. We all love different things, and that's fine. It's okay to like other ships (or multiple ships, believe it or not, I do actually like the other ships on this show). And it's okay to be upset at times when the writing or production gets frustrating. I'm not saying that it isn't. And I'm not saying Polins are perfect (we're not - and we got some issues, too, believe me).
But Polins embrace fandom in a way that I don't think the others do. And maybe it's because we embrace being that girl on the left as well as knowing we're also the girl on the right, and that it's okay to be uncool as long as we're ourselves.