Heyyyyyy I’d really like to talk more about the ball, who’s with me.
Because for all its glitter, the ball is dark. No, seriously, it’s dark. It’s eerie, it’s disturbing, and the narrative doesn’t shy away from showing us just how much.
As in a classic fairytale, mortals are being spirited away into another realm to dance through the night. Here, however, we see exactly who is orchestrating the dance, and why.
And we empathize with him, but watching Aziraphale has never been so painful or so unsettling.
Nina arrives distraught and is immediately hit with the realization that she doesn’t feel distraught, even though she knows she should be feeling it. She confronts Aziraphale and he just tells her: oh yes! :) no long faces tonight! And she is disturbed throughout the ball, thinks she is losing her mind, questions and fights the enchantment… but from time to time, the enchantment still takes hold.
And just—
Aziraphale. Aziraphale, you do know that manipulating people is wrong, don’t you? You… do know that? And yes, of course, neither Crowley’s nor Aziraphale’s approach to morality is human. They are eldritch, they are otherworldly. It was Crowley who changed the paintball guns into real guns in S1, though of course, the humans still had choice in using them.
But the ball is still different.
We’ve never seen Aziraphale do anything quite so disturbing before, or go so obviously deep into his own delusion. There are moments during these scenes when even Crowley, permanently frustrated, is very nearly disturbed. (“Angel! What are you doing?” or “Making it rain is one thing, but a BALL?”)
I fully think that by that point in the story, Aziraphale is not all right. He is in an anxiety spiral, denying reality fiercely, obstinately, disastrously, not listening to any of Crowley’s hissed warnings. Yes, yes, he is giddy, he is in love. It’s so very important for him that everything go RIGHT this night, the night he gets to dance with Crowley. Is he even aware of everything he is conjuring up, of the enchantment he has woven? The humans who step through the doors of the bookshop change: their clothing, their mood, their speech patterns… By this point, is Aziraphale doing this consciously at all? Or is reality conforming to his expectations, forcing everyone into a replica of the nineteenth century while Aziraphale himself, distracted and smitten, works himself up to inviting Crowley to dance?
In the first few episodes, as fear and danger grow, as Aziraphale is faced with the danger specifically to Crowley (I don’t see why he would risk his existence for you, Shax tells him in the car), Aziraphale only denies reality all the more fiercely, only holds on to his plans tighter, only puts more force into them and exerts more control (really, rather like the archangels with their Great Plan).
And the ball, beautiful and otherworldly and eerie as it is, is also a dire warning.
In the morning, it will be Crowley, not Aziraphale, who will get told off for manipulating Nina and Maggie. Aziraphale won’t reflect on this. He won’t be forced to reflect, and Metatron will manipulate him in turn.
There is a plan to follow. The show must go on.
GOD the ball is so dark.
Ooh yes I LOVE this take! Thank you!!! The Ball gets creepier the more I watch it. And Aziraphale is genuinely unsettling in that scene.
Aziraphale is single-mindedly clinging to his version of reality. I will have a ball and it will make Nina and Maggie fall in love and everyone will be happy and safe and Heaven will leave us all alone. Everything will work out exactly as I need it to.
His sheer stubbornness is on full display here. Stubbornness to the point of delusion. Stubbornness to the point of harm. (He really is “just enough of a bastard” isn’t he?). And I love his stubbornness, I love his steel, but here we see how easily he can take it too far.
And it beautifully sets up his final decision! Where he decides that he’ll take over Heaven and it will bend to his designs. It will change for the better, he will make a difference, through the sheer force of his will. (And Crowley will come with him, because Crowley always comes with him, and everything will work out exactly as he needs it to).
And when Crowley says he doesn’t want that, when he says he wants them to be an us, in an altogether different way than Aziraphale has envisioned for them, what does Aziraphale do? Shake his head, plead with Crowley, beg him to see things his way, refuse to hear what Crowley is really saying. Grips his version of reality even tighter, and he can’t force Crowley to come with him (imagine if he could? I shudder to think), so he lets Crowley go. He lets his entire world go. For the sake of this grand vision the Metatron has given him.
That unnerving smile in the elevator? That’s him forcing his own mind to its new sole purpose. Don’t think of Crowley, he’s abandoned you. Don’t think of your bookshop, taken away. Don’t think of how your entire world has just fallen apart. You’re going to Heaven now. And you will remake it, make it properly Good.
I think we’ll see even more of this dark side to Aziraphale in season 3. Aziraphale doggedly ignoring that his whole world has fallen apart, single-mindedly focused on remaking Heaven. I think he’ll eventually reach some breaking point where he absolutely can’t ignore that any longer. And then I think he’ll turn that stubbornness into strength. Into an ability to stand on his own, stand firm in his morals and convictions, and not constantly second-guess himself and agonize over whether he’s doing the Right Thing. He’ll strike a true balance, figure out how to be soft without being helpless, and how to be steely without being stubborn. In short, he’ll figure out exactly who he is.
(Cis/trans)women aren’t the only ones that can get breast cancer, either.
Please boost this version 👆
official boob post
No One Can Understand, How Much I Love Leah
(This might be a bit biased for me because I’m a big fan of the actress who plays her, Julia Jones. She is a really good actress)
Many people have been saying this, especially on tik tok, so I’m gonna say it here.
But there was something about Leah that I honestly really liked, and I wish for more for her character. I really saw her character as being relatable while also misunderstood, having bad things thrown at her, and also having a lot of potential. Her character is incredibly empathetic, and her anger is understandable.
Speaking on the movies, Leah is going through a lot, her dad just died, her mother is now a widow, she has to look after her little brother because he had just turned, along with herself, her boyfriend left her for her cousin, who was also her best friend, and now she is stuck with him, while also having to obey him. (and she has a psychic connection with said ex-boyfriend, and a bunch of other dudes) she was, and is the only girl in the packs, and none of the guys in the pack really liked her nor do they want her there, and they do not seem to care about what she is going through. And she knows that everyone in the pack thinks of her as the “pathetic ex girlfriend.” Which is not fair, especially when compared to Bella.
To me, Leah was just a Young girl who was just trying to do what was right for herself, her family, etc. while now struggling with uncontrollable enhanced emotions, and an uncontrollable enhancement in her physical body, while still going through so much trauma.
When she leaves the pack she doesn’t regret it. That scene with her finally opening up to Jacob, really spoke. She’s finally Letting things out, and there is someone who actually cares to listen. And worse none of the boys seem to apologize for what happened.
That scene makes my inner tween scream out. I loved that scene, it honestly made me really want Leah Clearwater books, her life before Turning, her life after turning, etc. Maybe Leah is finding new love, maybe being happy by herself. The story should have ended with her overcoming everything, being proud of being the first female wolf, the writing for the wolves was not done great,
Man, Leah (and the pack) deserved better.
Rosalie
Rosalie Hale is one of the best characters in Twilight and she was really done dirty in the Eclipse movie.
In the book, when she tells Bella her story, Bella is in Edwards room and Rosalie very politely comes to talk to her.
"It's me," Rosalie said softly, opening the door enough that I could see the silver glow touch her perfect face. "Can I come in?"
"Do you mind talking to me for a few minutes?" she asked. "I didn't wake you or anything, did I?"
....
"Please don't think I'm horribly interfering," Rosalie said, her voice gentle and almost pleading. She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them as she spoke. "I'm sure I've hurt your feelings enough in the past, and I don't want to do that again."
She hasn't exactly been friendly to Bella in the past but this is the scene where we find out why. Rosalie is almost the only character who doesn't want to be a vampire. She loved her human life and, to her, becoming a vampire represents losing everything she wanted. It is naïve for Rosalie to also apply this to Bella, though, because Bella wasn't born into a wealthy and powerful family. But we realise that Rosalie is actually jealous of Bella for having the opportunity to raise a family.
"You already have everything. You have a whole life ahead of you - everything I want. And you're going to just throw it away. Can't you see that I'd trade everything I have to be you?"
...
"You did get some of your happy ending, though," I reminded her. "You got Emmett."
"I got half." She grinned.
...
"But there will never be more than the two of us. And I'll never sit on a porch somewhere, with him gray-haired by my side, surrounded by our grand-children."
To Rosalie, Bella's making a huge mistake that she'll have to live with for eternity.
"You don't want to be rash about permanent things, Bella."
I do believe that Rosalie should have respected Bella's decision to turn because to Bella, vampirism represents the opposite. It represents everything she wants (strength, beauty, immortality, etc.). But still, Rosalie's intentions are clear in this scene.
Rosalie was looking out for Bella.
However, in the movie version of Eclipse, Bella walks in on Rosalie who proceeds to just be flat out rude, opening with this line:
I personally have always felt like Smeyer had no respect for Rosalie as a character. This scene was the perfect opportunity to show just how complex she is but I guess the creators of the film didn't respect her enough either. Instead, we basically get a character assassination that makes her one of the most over-hated characters in the Twilight universe.
i wish so much that we got to see the vampires and wolfpack get along without all that racism and fighting. Just good old fun. (And a way more diverse cast) but like imagine if twilight was set during the 2010s?
imagine if tiktok was a thing during eclipse?
Rosalie would just be on live showing how to fix a tire caught in the mud and in the background Emmett is just yeeting himself off the roof and she’s just blinking into the camera saying it was a bird
Next think you know someone has made it into a gif and zoomed in and Emmett is suddenly considered a birdman and the wolf pack is like bet we can do one better and transform into wolves jumping off a cliff but lie and say it’s really good effects bc Seth goes to school for that stuff
And now Rosalie is stuck helping glue feathers onto Emmett bc Leah said it would make the lore more believable (really she didn’t think he’d do it and got $50 from Embry for asking)
I fully believe that new moon should have eluded to bella and Jacob either having sex or fooling around.
That way when out of nowhere bella suddenly is ready to die for the ice pp in eclipse after Eddie boy comes back it makes sense.
If when Edward was gone she turned to Jacob for comfort and closeness in the only way she can think of; (maybe as a direct result of her mother's influence. I could totally see a conversation between Renee and Bella where Renee encourages Bella to fool around with Jacob just to get over edward, ) it would make perfect sense that when Edward comes back she would immediately want the same/more closeness with him.
Bella would actually have a reason to get emotional and feel rejected when Edward turns her down, which I still think should happen.
It would also give a lot more credence to Edward's hatred of Jacob and could make it less about Jacob being a wolf and more about "you got to see her naked before I did waaahhh I'm an incel."
It would fix so many problems. Bella suddenly is an actual character with flaws instead of the virgin Mary Sue. Jacob is a hormonal teenage boy who is understandably confused but also emboldened; and his aggressive pursuit of bella actually makes sense (not that it's right, it would just make more sense). Edward is forced to confront his outdated ideals about virginity and marriage instead of having them validated, and maybe he and Bella end up having a God forbid actual conversation that isn't just, "I could kill you" - "yeah but you wont"
But no....no we couldn't possibly have that.
I was always back and forth on many things about Twilight, one of them being the fact that Bella was so adamant about being a vampire, it seemed as though she was willing to give up everything for Edward. She was ready to let go of Renee, Charlie, Jacob, the pack, and her friends, but then I thought about it.
Bella spent most of her life taking care of her mother; she had to give up a lot of her childhood for Renee, She never had any friends, and her mother chose her new husband over her.
And living with her mother, being so far away from Charlie, when she finally comes to Forks, we immediately see that she and Charlie are not close. And we see that they barely know anything about each other.
She moves to a new town of people who are already obsessed with her even though she barely remembers them, many people who do not understand boundaries. When she finally gets to school, she is greeted with a rude "joke" from the same guy that kisses her without her consent; many of her guy friends are constantly trying to date her, touching her, etc., and Jessica is very rude.
She’s overloaded with people in this town who do not seem actually to care about her, and what she wants.
Bella didn't have anybody until she met Edward and his family. Edward, at first, is the only person at school who isn't obsessing over her, to her face. I mean, yes, he is insulting, but he is constantly asking her about things that she likes, dislikes, and things going on in her life; he seems actually to care.
And then he saves her, and when he finally lets her into his life, she sees how extraordinary he and his family are; she finally gets some excitement in her life, and she finally gets a life. She becomes close with almost all of them when she learns more about them, how they turned, why they turned, etc. She understands that after they turned when they found each other, they obtained love, parents, kids, family, a family that helps each other, does anything for each other, and is there for each other. As well as seeing them as beautiful, fast, and strong, and we also see that with the packs as well. And I think Bella gravitated more to the supernatural side because, with that, she will get and become what she’s always wanted.
only reason why twilight in college wouldn’t work is because we all know edward would be that pretentious peacoat wearing asshat who corrects the prof, arrives late, is first name basis with the prof, and listens to very loud music instead of pretending to be taking notes. it would have to be a full on horror story at that point because even bella would’ve ran for the hills.
ok i can’t believe i’m doing this but i think bellas stupid anger at being 18 is kinda on point !!
(thinking that she is /old/ is the problem. remove the scene where she imagines herself as her grandma & don’t make it all ab edward & i think it is v interesting !)
she spent so much of her childhood being an adult & now she is finally acting her age. she didn’t really get to be teenager and now she’s on the heels of it. of course she is angry !! she spent years being an adult to her mother and now she legally is one and she doesn’t want to be.
it is kinda the deeper problem of the series that the characters all have the building blocks to be v interesting, complex characters but it’s never actually used. they have the backstory but it isn’t realistically integrated into how they act/think beyond a v basic level.