your3fundamentaltruths - Tumblr blog

[your3fundamentaltruths]

Part 2 of a a book/show fusion AU wherein Colin’s devious plan to rush the wedding is overtaken by events entirely beyond his control.

The second night is even better, as Lady Featherington departed first thing in the morning and Penelope is not so secretly delighted to be out from under her mother’s watchful eye. The third and fourth and the fifth, sixth, and seventh nights are even more delightful.

And so it goes.

But one morning everything changes.

[your3fundamentaltruths]

2 Years of turn around, bright eyes!

Thank you SO much to everyone who has read, commented on, and otherwise engaged with turn around, bright eyes! It has been quite the ride to plot out and write and I've loved hearing your thoughts and theories and been made to blush by your exceedingly kind words. Thank you for sticking with me!

Since I did not get a new chapter ready in time for the actual anniversary date on April 15th, I'm dropping a flashback from an upcoming chapter.

Without further ado . . .

He is eight when baby Colin’s arrival on a blustery January morning makes him an eldest – rather than merely elder – brother. 

The last night it would only be they two Bridgerton boys, Benedict sneaks into his room and stays through the night. They sleep top and tail, fitfully, until tiredness overtakes even their unease at hearing their mother’s cries of pain as she struggles to bring their new sibling into the world. 

Early the next morning, as the light of dawn begins to peek through his curtains, Anthony awakens to find their father hovering over his bed, a bundle of blankets in his arms that cannot be anything other than the new baby.

“Good morning, Anthony,” says Papa in a scratchy voice as Benedict slowly stirs to wakefulness. 

“Morning,” he mumbles. “May I see?”

“Once Benedict budges up, I’ll sit.”

He kicks his younger brother in the shin, which wakes him up properly. 

Benedict scowls at him, but he mirrors his stance, sitting up to make room for Papa and – 

“This is your brother,” Papa says softly once he’s settled down between them, the baby cradled gently in his arms. “Colin.”

Two children whose names start with A for the elder and B for the younger might be a coincidence; choosing a name beginning with C for the third officially makes it a pattern. Nose crinkling, he tilts his head in question. 

Papa grins. “Your mama insisted.”

“Mm,” he murmurs noncommittally. He would never dream of criticizing Mama, but it’s really rather silly. Oh well. He looks more closely at his new brother. 

He isn’t sure what he expected, precisely, but the baby looks . . . like a baby, with chubby pink cheeks and a little fuzz of indeterminate color on his head.

Papa laughs when he makes that observation aloud. “He’ll grow into himself eventually and we’ll get to know him and his personality properly. Give it some time.”

“His eyes are like mine,” Benedict says smugly when their new brother blinks open his eyes for a few moments. 

He frowns; Benedict isn’t quite right (the baby’s eyes are a much darker shade of blue) but they are blue, so he is – and it seems will continue to be – the odd one out with his dark, dark eyes. “No, they’re not –”

“Either way, they might well change,” Father interrupts, well-practiced at defusing their disputes. “Babies’ eyes often do.”

(Colin’s will not. They stay the same dark blue he entered the world with, the same dark blue with which Eloise, Francesca, and eventually Hyacinth will all be born – their mother’s dark blue. 

Only when Gregory comes along will one of his younger siblings finally share his eye color.)

Papa clears his throat. “You are both big brothers now. That is a very serious thing. You will need to teach him everything you know and guide him so that he grows to be a good, kind boy as I try to teach you to be.”

He and Benedict exchange solemn looks, their fingers ghosting over the edge of the blanket and not quite touching their baby brother’s tiny fingers; they can sense at least some of the import of Papa’s statement based on his tone, before turning to Papa and nodding seriously.

“We will,” he says fiercely – if quietly, so as not to startle baby Colin, who startles him by wrapping his little fist around his index finger.

And stealing his heart.

For as long as he can remember, Benedict has been his best friend and his partner in crime, but he knows in that moment that Colin will be something entirely different.

(He does not know then that it will be Colin with whom he makes nearly all his worst mistakes as a brother.)

[your3fundamentaltruths]

So really, there was no urgent need to move up the wedding.

Except that he wanted to.

But what if he couldn't?

Or a book/show fusion AU wherein Colin’s devious plan to rush the wedding is overtaken by events entirely beyond his control.

Polin Week 2024 Day One: Favorite Quote

[your3fundamentaltruths]

"The side of him that, when faced with a son that is so much like him he worries for his future, horsewhips as a punishment for something he did.

Give us a Bridgerton who does not remember their father fondly. Give us Colin, who's happy memories of Edmund have been overshadowed by the one mistake he ever made and didn't live long enough to seek forgiveness. Give us an Edmund who's exactly like his son, who pushes the confrontation back until it rises to the surface. . . ."

"Give us a Colin who has never brought his father up in conversation. Give us a Colin who, when someone says he reminds them of Edmund, goes eerily quiet and is that a flighty look that Penelope sees appear in his eyes, or was it a trick of the light?"

If you want this, with my apologies for being totally immodest, have I GOT a story for you: an excellent father

"Penelope knows that the sudden loss of Lord Bridgerton was quite painful. But she has heard all of Colin’s siblings – save Gregory, who is too young to remember him, and Hyacinth, who never knew him – at least refer to their father in passing when recalling childhood memories and even Eloise, who stood witness to his untimely death, speaks warmly and fondly of him.

It’s hardly the first time she’s wondered why Colin never mentions his father."

Wherein their impending arrival reignites Penelope's interest in a topic Colin has always seemed to avoid.

It's one of the earliest stories I wrote in this fandom, so it's heavily book-based. Half-tempted to turn the story notes into their own post!

And it's part of a series, which includes an "Edmund Lives" outtake in the outtakes: an excellent father series.

Bridgerton has given us two sides of Edmund currently. The deity that Anthony figuratively prays to, bestowing a twisted martyrdom on his father and Daphne's idolisation of him which she hopes to emulate through the love he and Violet shared by finding a love match of her own. Both portraying Edmund as a positive force in their lives, but we have to remember he is a character first and foremost.

So, we need the negative. Something that would knock him off the pedestal some members of the family have placed him on even though they may never know of it. The side of him that, when faced with a son that is so much like him he worries for his future, horsewhips as a punishment for something he did.

Give us a Bridgerton who does not remember their father fondly. Give us Colin, who's happy memories of Edmund have been overshadowed by the one mistake he ever made and didn't live long enough to seek forgiveness. Give us an Edmund who's exactly like his son, who pushes the confrontation back until it rises to the surface.

Give us a Colin who can't step close to a stable or he starts to feel his breath catch and his lungs struggle to take in air and-wait, did anyone else hear the sharp sound of a whip cracking?

Give us a Colin who can only ride well-trained horses because the sight of a horsewhip being carried towards him makes his skin crawl and the scar on his back, a sign that Edmund had went too far, burn. Was that the plea of a boy in the distance, begging for his father to stop, or was that all in his mind? The sound of leather meeting skin and the wail in response?

Give us a Colin who has never brought his father up in conversation. Give us a Colin who, when someone says he reminds them of Edmund, goes eerily quiet and is that a flighty look that Penelope sees appear in his eyes, or was it a trick of the light?

[your3fundamentaltruths]

Wherein Eloise is literally unwilling to read the room (or Eloise being the worst sister, again)

Yet another instance of “please clap, she’s supposed to be a witty feminist Ahead of Her Time who is Not Like Other Girls (but is mostly just being an asshole).” This is the definition of kicking someone while they’re down and being utterly indifferent to your own family (not just Anthony, but the potential impact of a scandal on the whole family) for literally no good reason. Also, the second instance of her prioritizing women unrelated to her over one of her brothers going through something serious Because Feminism.

I hope the idea behind this is to give her somewhere to grow from, but we shall see.

Bridgerton | The Choice (2.06)

[your3fundamentaltruths]

A few hours after being seen off by a bridegroom nearly asleep on his feet and a suddenly impatient Lady Featherington, the Bridgertons are just beginning to help themselves to tea when the butler returns.

Or the second part of a "Penelope reveals Marina's pregnancy privately" fic. Mind the tags.

[your3fundamentaltruths]

me: i am INSPIRED i want to WRITE

my brain, immediately: i have never once even seen a sentence

[your3fundamentaltruths]

“Pen just wanted to make sure that we started our marriage in perfect honesty,” Colin says guilelessly when he casually exposes her cousin’s treachery.

Clearly, she had not struck true in executing the childish infatuation.

Or, a canon AU wherein Penelope doesn’t publish anything about Marina’s pregnancy and instead tells Colin privately.

[your3fundamentaltruths]

235 FAVORITE SHIPS OF ALL TIME (ranked by my followers) 85. sebastian de poitiers and kenna de poitiers - reign

[your3fundamentaltruths]

The way I am so sick of how the show Bridgertons treat Colin.

It's way more than just not answering his letters. They have repeatedly failed to show him due care and consideration.

First, let's go back to season 1 and Colin's broken engagement and how the Bridgertons prioritized literally everyone affected over Colin (the family and its reputation, Marina, Penelope and the Featheringtons, etc.). Not saying they should have lacked all concern for practical matters or empathy for others, but it seemed deeply cruel and dehumanizing that Eloise and Daphne in particular could barely spare a thought for their own brother’s feelings because they were so focused on everyone else involved. Eloise dismissed Colin as inconsequential in his own broken engagement, instead answering Penelope's inquiry about how Colin is doing by saying his pride was hurt and he'd be fine because gentlemen always are in these matters. For Daphne, Colin was conveniently forgotten the moment she could project her own situation onto Marina; she practically tripped over herself refusing Marina's apology to apologize to her instead, with no acknowledgement of the fact that it was Colin, not Daphne, who was owed an apology in the first place. Meanwhile, Colin was confused and hurt and silently crying in his room all by his lonesome.

Ironically, for all that his advice was misguided at best (as Colin himself notes), when all was said and done, Anthony was the only person who was both shown to apologize to Colin (for his reaction at the start) and to express concern for Colin’s feelings in the wake of his broken engagement. . . .

But then he proceeded to act as if Colin's return after months abroad was completely unimportant.

In fact, besides Gregory and Hyacinth, the family mostly showed more excitement to see Daphne and her baby after a few days/weeks than they did when Colin returned after months and months of overseas travel in a time when travel was so much more dangerous. And this was Colin's very first time traveling abroad and alone. Contrast with the book Bridgertons' reaction to seasoned traveler Colin returning at the beginning of RMB.

But on the show, Anthony was so wrapped up in one-upping Kate that he barely reacted to Colin’s return and just dragged him to the races along with the rest of the family rather than considering . . . oh, I don't know, that he might want to rest for a bit. (Anthony's principal emotion toward Colin was expressing frustration in the prior episode that he intended to extend his travels – which he clearly did not do in the end.) And then, after a mere few hours of Colin being back, Eloise proceeded to complain that Colin was in her way, complete with absurdly hateful look, all because he dared to be talking to their mutual friend when Eloise came looking for her.

In the second season, the Bridgertons are repeatedly shown to dismiss Colin and make him feel boring to the point he not only alludes to it to Penelope more than once, but he indirectly remarks on it to his ex-fiancée. The second we saw him say anything about his trip at Aubrey Hall – and that only in response to Eloise's jibe about him lulling the baby to sleep with his many, many tales from his travels – ABDE exchanged smirky looks that suggest they all agree with her, that Colin has been talking their ears off and boring them to tears. But we never actually saw him talking to them about his trip other than when he was sharing the special tea with Benedict – and that was in the midst of trying to help Benedict.

(The special tea scene is also the only time we see Colin say something vulnerable to one of his siblings: Or perhaps it will allow you to escape the thoughts that have been plaguing your mind. The doubts, the questions that seem to linger, no matter how far you go to escape them. While Benedict asks if he's quite well, he's too caught up in his own understandable anxieties about his academic/artistic future to pursue the topic after Colin sidesteps it. Instead, Benedict proceeds to snatch up the pouch of special tea and use it all up in one go when only a little was needed. Yeah, his doing so kicked off a very funny scene, but never mind that Colin might have wanted to use it again himself.)

And it's more than teasing or banter among siblings – the first thing Eloise did when it came up that Colin and Penelope were corresponding was to be dismissive of his writing by saying she stopped reading his letters because he rambles. (Yes, she is at least partly jealous that the brother closest to her in age gets all these experiences she doesn't solely because he's a man and she's a woman and partly jealous at this reminder that he has his own separate friendship with her best friend.) I wish Penelope would've disagreed with her rather than quip that he isn't Lady Whistledown, but that reaction also supports the idea that Eloise's dismissiveness of Colin is a fact of life: Penelope doesn't seem to be the slightest bit surprised that Eloise would go there or to think that it's worth trying to change her mind.

. . . But what if she does later?

The show Featherington family's way of treating its thirdborn is more overtly cruel; the show Bridgerton family's way is more subtle and insidious. Both are deeply hurtful. And in both cases, the same holds true: If you're not shown the same love and support and consideration as everyone else in your family, might you not start to question what is wrong with you and why you are unworthy and undeserving? They can't all be wrong, can they?

Except they are and Polin will prove it.

Man, the way I WILL GO FERAL if we get the parallel of Colin and Penelope standing up for themselves and each other – of Penelope supporting Colin in front of his family in the same way he called out Portia for not appreciating her in the books. Lifting each other up as worthy, to be fully seen and appreciated by everyone, but especially those who should've been doing it all along.

Imagine being so tight knit with your family but when you decide to follow your passion for travelling barely anyone responds to your letters and they find your stories tedious and boring and don't even try to hide it from you or show any support.

I know he's got stuff to work on but I really hope he calls them out on their shit, too.

[your3fundamentaltruths]

you ever read a fic so good you want to sit around and discuss it with people english class style

[your3fundamentaltruths]

AO3 Comments are SO SO SOOOOOOO important because you can only leave Kudos ONCE. You add to the hit count ONCE (every 24 hours).

So whenever someone updates their fic, the ONLY way an author knows who their regular readers are is if they comment on each chapter. And we WANT to know who's still reading.

Believe it or not, some of us think about the name that pops up constantly in the comments and go "omg I can't wait to see what they think of THIS SPECIFIC SCENE cuz I KNOW they'll say something about it!!!"

[your3fundamentaltruths]

“Is it okay if I draw fanart of your fanfic?👉🏼👈🏼”

My brother in Christ we shall have a spring wedding

[your3fundamentaltruths]

I Wish You Knew (Part 3)

The second part of an AU in which Colin and Penelope ran away together to escape the queen’s wrath.

“Mr. Dorset,” says the dowager viscountess through trembling lips, “please tell me this isn’t some cruel joke.”

Next thing he knows, Anthony has him pinned against the wall by the throat. “It had better not be.”

“Anthony,” Kate Bridgerton scolds half-heartedly, clearly knowing him well enough to pick her battles.

“Surely not, Mother, and certainly not just before your birthday,” interjects Gregory before he can reply, taking her hand protectively. The young man levels a glare at him from behind his brother’s head that cannot quite hide the hope in his eyes.

Anthony loosens his grasp enough to allow him to shake his head slightly.

“No, my lady,” he replies reassuringly. “I would never joke about such a thing. In fact, I even have evidence that they are safe and well. You can see it with your own eyes in the foyer.”

Read on AO3.

[your3fundamentaltruths]

In 'Turn around, bright eyes', will Simon join the others on welcoming back Colin and Pen? I love how she let Daphne know what he thought and felt about what happened at the infamous dinner

Thanks so much for the ask! This is a great question and (without spoilers) I'll say we will definitely hear from Simon eventually and see more of his perspective!

(Though you may also have peeped the mention of him when Colin was at the club.)

[your3fundamentaltruths]

for your WIPs I'd love to know about either a careless man’s careful daughter or project Penelope! :)

OMG I haven't gotten to talk about a careless man's careful daughter in literally years!

To recap, a careless man’s careful daughter is a canon-era Polin AU (show/book fusion) in which Penelope has an older brother which opens after the carriage scene happens and Colin just walks into their house and casually asks for Pen’s hand. Big bro is just like “hell nah” and chaos ensues. In the tag above, there's one scene I've already shared from it and I'll share the opening scene below:

When Lady Featherington says “Felicity” before Colin can get a word in edgewise to ask for Penelope’s hand, her older brother rolls his eyes. “Good God, Mother! Of course not Felicity, he arrived with Penelope and insisted she sit beside him. Not that he’s good enough for either of them.”

Colin’s polite smile freezes on his face. He’s known for years that Preston Featherington doesn’t like him and he’s tried not to let it bother him, but he wasn’t expecting this level of aggression. 

“Preston,” Lady Featherington hisses, her daughters’ exclamations equally disapproving.

“Over my dead body.”

Lady Featherington’s jaw drops and Felicity’s eyes are as wide as saucers.

Penelope whispers her brother’s name.

It is only the second time in his life he’s been stunned speechless. He’d honestly thought this conversation would be more of a formality than anything else, given that Penelope is very much of age and doesn’t need her brother’s permission. But to be met with this much hostility . . . “I beg your pardon?” he finally manages.

“The answer is no. I wouldn’t let you marry Penelope if you were the last man on earth.”

“Preston Featherington!” Lady Featherington looks to be on the verge of a nervous attack.

“You cannot be serious,” says Penelope, having finally recovered her voice.

“Deadly,” Preston replies.

“I would like to have a private moment with you, my lord,” he manages through gritted teeth.

“And me,” adds Penelope instantly.

“Not you,” Preston retorts.

 “Yes me,” Penelope insists.

“Fine. Not that it will change my answer.”

[your3fundamentaltruths]

For the WIP game: I Wish You Knew

Because I am HOPING to post an update for I Wish You Knew very soon, I'm just going to share the last bits of the most recently posted chapter for context with the first few bits that follow:

Having left his companions in the foyer, he ascends the grand staircase, is shown into the drawing room, and booms dramatically to the room at large, “Good afternoon, Bridgertons! I have come to collect.”

Anthony, as is his wont, forgoes the niceties. “Collect what, Dorset?” he asks, frowning in confusion.

“The five thousand pounds you promised.”

Anthony turns white to the lips, but makes no sound.

Silence reigns until it is broken by the sound of porcelain shattering when a teacup slips from the suddenly slack grip of Eloise Crane.

“Mr. Dorset,” says the dowager viscountess through trembling lips, “please tell me this isn’t some cruel joke.”

Next thing he knows, Anthony has him pinned against the wall by the throat. “It had better not be.”