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penelope's line from prompocalyse always stuck with me - 'i let them put my best friend in that crystal'. i can just picture her lying in her bed before prom wishing she had her best friend there, possibly the only person penelope ever actually loved, but knowing that she would never be forgiven for giving her up in the first place. sam wasn't a means to an end, in her eyes sam was a sacrifice that had to be made to be queen. sam was a shred of goodness and hope and happiness that penelope gave up for power, not only because sam herself would be sacrificed but because the sam that loved her, her best friend, would cease to exist.
i don't think she liked sam because she was pretty or talented or famous - i think she liked sam because sam loved her. it's both more and less meaningful, because in being loved by sam penelope could and did love her back but didn't anticipate that one day sam would stop loving her. she's left with this feeling of empitiness and loneliness that she doesn't even attempt to mend because she knows that nobody would ever compare to sam, so all she can do is cling to her crown and try to fill the hole herself with everything she thought she admired about sam.
sam was strong. sam was beautiful. sam was fierce and independent and powerful. penelope could be all of these things and more, and yet never be able to fill the hole sam left because she wouldn't let herself care. penelope loved that if she said the right thing sam would be hurt, because sam cared and penelope could always exploit that weakness. there was a kind of sick pride in not caring, because even if sam was stronger than her at least penelope didn't care. at least she could nurture that love and dependency without ever having to be burdened by reciprocating it.
penelope never anticipated that one day sam wouldn't care. and penelope would be forced to acknowledge that she cared, that she had cared all along, and that now sam didn't.
I’m thinking about nightpetal again and specifically thinking about the “I don’t love you anymore.” thinking about it from penelope’s perspective, if that actually was penelope. thinking about her taunting sam like she always did, except now six girls rip through time and space to take sam’s hand and take her away. six girls who have clearly fought through some shit to come get sam, six people who love sam and aren’t afraid to tell her, to show her. I just wonder how she felt seeing antiope taking sam by the hand and telling her she loves her so openly. I wonder if, as sam told her “I don’t love you anymore,” surrounded by people who would clearly do anything for her, if penelope regretted not being that for sam. I wonder if it hurt her to know that she didn’t have someone like that, especially because she knows that, for most of her life, she did.