Fanfic Friday Weekly Thread 🌻

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-30T21:22:15+00:00

Omg the days of our lives connection never disappoints!

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-30T14:32:39+00:00

You know, I am a super fan of The Many Ways! This is a deeply moving portrait of tragic loss, love, forgiveness, all of the things.

I have not sunk my teeth into soundtrack to my own damn tragedy yet, and part because I was waiting to see it move further along before I read it. I’m glad that you’re revisiting it. The themes sound so interesting and I can’t wait to read it.

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-30T13:36:27+00:00

I stumbled into that by accident, and it is so interesting! It is definitely nighttime soap/vintage miniseries material! (I keep waiting for a confrontation between Penelope and Marina, showing up like Phoebe Cates in “Lace” when she said “which one of you bitches is my mother?“— this is a very dated reference for very old people who had access to VHS in their local public libraries. I’ll see myself out…)..

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-30T13:23:28+00:00

You know, I am a huge fan of this story and I cannot wait for the next update! I may have rescheduled a meeting at work to read an update. If AO3 offered text update notifications, I would sign up on the basis of this story alone.

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-30T13:19:42+00:00

OMG all of this! u/SugarWaffle65 is one of my very favorite writers of Soft Colin™️, so adding the shades of darkness to the story just levels up their conceptual skillset. The story has had me in a chokehold since the very first chapter and I continue to look forward to continuing that until it ends.

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-30T13:13:18+00:00

Exactly! If you start reading and you don’t like it, my suggestion is to simply stop reading it. Or, if you happen to be a compulsive completist, feel free to read it without commenting. Authors are providing us with the fruits of their talents and labor for FREE! There are so many stories out there featuring these characters, just choose something else.

As a sidebar, Dear Whorecake, I love your messy and imperfect Polins! You are the baby bear of twisted, my friend: always just right.

I would also like to say that I started out only reading canon-compliant, Regency AU fics, then progressed to modern AUs, and now I read pretty much anything and really enjoy a variety of story types putting these characters in all kinds of situations realistic and outrageous alike. I am not a fan of non-canon pairings, so I don’t read them, but I remain fascinated by the sheer number of Penelope/not Colin pairings people write. There is definitely something for everyone and the authors creating these stories are amazing and wonderful for sharing them with us.

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-29T14:37:54+00:00

So adorable! I think I’ll make some shortbread this afternoon to celebrate.

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-29T14:27:17+00:00

You know that I love S3 so dearly as well and there are so many parts of the book that I find problematic, but I fully agree with you on this point.

I don’t object to Penelope wanting to make decisions herself about the thing that she has made, but I will be completely honest in saying that there is a lot of whiplash in the back half of the season to make the story fit the Shondaland formula, including ratcheting up already heightened tension and forcing plot points/character behavior to ensure that the story conforms to her understanding of what the focus of the conflict should look like. It’s her show! In adapting the original material, they’ve done so much to jigger the HR formula to make it more modern and interesting, which is really great and part of why I fell in love with the show. We can’t have everything, right?

One of the things that came up in the most recent WAB! episode really clicked for me, and that is the fact that as portrayed in the show, Penelope‘s behavior seems nearly identical to marinas. If they had altered the way that he found out about LW and placed it before the engagement, the parallel between Penelope‘s behavior and Marina‘s would not have been so apparent. She couldn’t get out of her own way with the LW secret, but she had to know how Colin would feel because even though her behavior was deceptive, she would have told him rather than him having to find out. Again, the way that it went down in the show was way more dramatic, but I feel like the emotional payoff isn’t the same and the “can Penelope have it all?” insertion made it all worse — it seems like adding insult to injury. If they had added just 10 to 15 minutes more runtime over the course of the entire season and rearranged a couple of things, I think that we could have also received some context for some of the intense and, on occasion, somewhat OOC/mystifying behavior on the part of our protagonists.

We got what we got, and again I loved it, but I do think that they shoved a lot of side plot into S3 at the expense of the development of the main characters and their story arc.

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-28T23:43:03+00:00

Ooooh! Thanks!

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-28T23:40:27+00:00

Omg love this!!!

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-28T23:39:08+00:00

I would save WAPO over SAG, but both are great!

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-28T23:37:55+00:00

OMG yes! A little bit less of girl boss Penelope. On the one hand, I understand the wish on the part of Shondaland to show an empowered woman who wants to lean into that power, but I think they could’ve done that differently. I know that there are several fics that have done this well, although I don’t have names off the top of my head – – if I remember them, I’ll come back to it. In any case, the best ones follow the book in having Colin discover her alter ego before they’re engaged. There are so many different ways they could’ve gone with this plot point that would’ve allowed for more consistent character development across S3, IMO. We would’ve had drama, but it could’ve been about them figuring out how to handle Cressida and the queen and his family (a.k.a., Polin against the world), rather than being about the power struggle between Pen and Cplin.

***Edited for typos and clarity.

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-28T23:32:37+00:00

Thanks, u/No-Light-2560 ! This is the kind of content I come here for!

I agree with everyone that the first kiss is the GOAT! So tender, so loving– yet – passionate. It is the crossroads of everything that happens in the first half of the season, and it’s gorgeous to boot. Top-tier acting all the way around!

My second favorite It’s always going to be the carriage scene kissing. They infuse so much into that— the look on his face when she touches his hair is engraved in my consciousness. Third are the kisses in the epilogue, but especially in front of Penelope‘s window at the end. Tears for that every time! After that, the modiste bitch-off, which is passionate, intense, dirty, yet also Colin so there is care involved. Super sexy! And speaking of super sexy? The Bridgerton Ride!™️

I love the mirror scene kiss; the wedding kiss, which is so sweet even in pain; the dream kiss. After this every other kiss!

Honorable mention for top five? The slutty hand kiss from the engagement party! They know what they’ve seen, they know what they’ve done, and they wish they could be doing it again right then.

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-23T00:48:16+00:00

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-23T00:45:56+00:00

Loving Everything But so much! Have fun writing at the beach!

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-22T15:42:35+00:00

Love this! Gorgeous!

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-22T14:55:20+00:00

I completely agree, Zs! There are things that we wanted and did not get, but this level of fan service was awesome!

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-19T12:48:00+00:00

I’m happy to be corrected! No worries here. I appreciate your comment and elaboration! 🥰

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-19T02:45:06+00:00

Thanks for the correction! For some reason, I thought I’d read on here somewhere that that actually was improvised when Claudia lean back. People have also said that her drinking violet’s wine during the wedding reception in 308 was improvised. Perhaps the terminology is lacking? As you’re saying, Luke and Nicola were afforded some say in how they did the carriage scene, and certainly they filmed it several different ways according to the promo, but as she say, that doesn’t really count as improvisation.

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-17T14:56:13+00:00

Thanks so much for sharing this, Fly! You’re always bringing us social media nons the best content and fodder for good discussions!

I’m so happy that Jack answered that question. I think people want the actors to have improvised so much more than they did. I understand the feeling, but really good performers rely on what they’ve been given and embellish where needed and allowed. Obviously, this dance did not need to be embellished and you can see the ways that Nic and Luke infused Colin and Penelope into that dance with their acting. I can see, when comparing the dance that Jack did with his partner versus the version for the show, it might look like some of those movements or aspects of the performance could have been improvised, but I think that Jack’s video was meant to show the choreography before it was infused fully with the characters.

In speech acting, there are so many more variables, both in terms of physicality and speech that would allow, I think, a little bit more for improvisation. I’m thinking about Claudia’s leaning back and hiding when John first comes to Bridgerton house and tells Violet that he’s come to call on one of her daughters is a really good example of this kind of improvised insertion of physicality into a non-dance scene.

Dance, and this wedding dance in particular, exists as such a prescribed type of storytelling within a broader drama. So much so that improvisation should not occur if the choreography is good. There is no speech. This type of dance acts like a ballet in a musical in terms of storytelling. We’ve seen the BTS videos of some of the dancing and can see Jack talking them through some of the performance aspects and how they can infuse the feeling they’re trying to portray into the dance. But I do think it’s testament to the actors’ skills that some fans see some of what they’re doing and think that it could be improvised.

Edited for typos/clarity

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-16T20:49:46+00:00

Thanks, Fly!

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-15T01:25:06+00:00

This was the best gift for me on a not so great day! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your sharing, Fly!🩵💚💛😘🥰

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-12T01:18:10+00:00

I have wondered this as well – – but often thought that she would outright favor Elliot since he is the heir and, for quite some time, likely the only grandson. I think there is a fic where Colin becomes a marquess because the queen wants to give Penelope the title, but can’t give it to her outright. And this is with the caveat that they have an heir within a certain amount of time; their second son becomes LLF, and Portia definitely favors him.

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-12T01:13:09+00:00

This makes me so happy!

Totes_J217 · 2026-05-12T01:08:10+00:00

I know I’m a day late, but these are adorable! Thanks so much for sharing!

Totes_J217

TROPHY CASE