u/pooja_cleopatre

So I'm assuming a lot of y'all are familiar with the Twilight movies?

I never did more than two braincells amount of thinking when I had watched The Twilight movie series. I was Team Edward because yes, during your early teenage years, you cannot tell grand love apart from creepy fixation. Still, he only had eyes for Bella, he self sabotaged in order for Bella to have a chance at a normal, happy life, all the works. Jacob was nice too, until he wasn’t. Bella punching Jacob after he force kissed her was satisfying, until she became the one to ask him to kiss her. I felt so uncomfortable and baffled watching that whole scene play out.

Now I can revisit it with more clarity. Bella asking Jacob to kiss her was her offering herself in the only way he would accept her. He overheard her engagement to Edward, his wolf genes went wild, threatened her by saying he’d much rather go fight downstairs and get killed. She pleaded with him repeatedly to make him stay and he only kept saying, “It's not good enough.” She shouted at him to kiss her as her last way of not losing her best friend. BellyJere dynamic in a nutshell.

The best part came next. Edward found out about it and simply said, “You love him.” Her saying, “I love you more,” and him replying, “I know.” Edward had accepted that she had feelings for Jacob and knew that somewhere, he was to blame for it. He was the one who left, after all, the one who made that choice for the both of them, even when she didn’t really want that. He still felt secure in her admission of her love for him. BellyCon dynamic in a nutshell.

Edward understanding that Bella harboured love for both of them in its own specific ways was quite moving. Even Conrad respected that Belly had chosen Jeremiah and vowed to honor it till the end.

Ofcourse, TSITP is a muuch more nuanced and fleshed out story.

Recently, Robert Patt had admitted that Jacob was just a marketing ploy. And honestly, I want Chris Briney to say the same thing about Jeremiah after 10 years lol. I will be waiting 😈

I wanted to talk about my absolute favourite Belly internal monologue nugget - pre-teen Belly's Conrad Birdie moment in S3Ep6, “I loved Conrad the way you can only do the first time around, with every bit of your being, without leaving anything for yourself.” As cute of a moment as it was, it contextualised the entire show’s core theme being about self love - the you-can’t-be-good-with-someone-else-unless-you're-good-with-yourself of it all.

Belly - Both of her relationships with the Fisher boys ended in self hatred. With Conrad, she hated and blamed herself for the aftermath of their breakup. She got with Jeremiah as a way of fixing her mistakes, only this time, her self worth got attached to sticking to her new choice no matter what. She became completely unable to call out Jeremiah’s bullshit because she carried the guilt of how, internally, she had swayed from her present "correct” choice (Jere) to her past "incorrect” choice (Con). She justified all her overcompensating actions through it. All of it still amounted to the realisation that her relationship with Jeremiah wasn’t an honest one; more self hatred followed.

Only in Paris did she prioritise herself over everything else; learned to love herself by giving herself grace and setting boundaries that she hadn’t set before. She viewed Conrad’s visit as a direct threat to her renewed sense of sense, but he was all accommodating of her boundaries and she couldn’t hide behind them anymore. His words ultimately helped her realise that her self love didn't have to come at the cost of sacrificing her Conrad love.

Conrad - Both S1 and S2 Conrad was full of self loathing - he hated himself for looking up to his dad, hated how his grief made him feel so helpless. He never fully expressed the extent of his love to Belly because he never thought that he was treating her the right way. He thought Jeremiah was the right choice, someone who wasn't broken like him and thus deserved Belly more.

At Stanford he really worked on giving himself grace, loving himself with all his imperfections. It was never about being with Belly the right or wrong way. It was only about being there with Belly, for Belly, in every way, nothing kept hidden. He did that, lowering himself from the pedestal in his pov ep, letting her see his flaws. In a single day he felt the weight of the error in his past self-sacrificial mentality. And when Jeremiah gave him the perfect window, he verbalised his love for Belly in the loudest way and never stopped. That was only possible because he had so much self assurance this time around.

His Paris visit also spoke of his self love in the way he chose to prioritise his happiness over his promises to others, how he wasn’t sorry to have loved and chased after her despite all his mistakes. Seeing him do it encouraged Belly to do the same for herself.

Jeremiah - Zero self love because of how little familial love he grew up with. His pov was the most convoluted. He outsourced his self worth from his hookups and then solely from Belly. S1, he asked if she could love him romantically to which she positively reciprocated. The very moment she chose to take back that love, he made his pain her liability. As if him getting to her “first” justified his thinking that she was wrong to have acted upon her long-standing Conrad feelings.

In S2, he couldn’t stand Belly getting close to or talking about Conrad, someone who had repeatedly “discarded” the love that naturally came his way. The more he denied Belly’s words, the more she had to prove her feelings for him. A lot of Belly’s love grew from this sense of obligation because he wouldn’t have it any other way. His self worth also came from actively highlighting Conrad’s mess in front of Belly.

Towards the season end, I think he did try to let her go for good, but only for a moment. The minute she chose him that morning at the motel, he didn’t push his luck further, choosing not to ask if Belly and Conrad had actually talked and what had happened of it.

In S3, his hypocrisy shone further. He looked at Christmas 2.0 as a breach to their relationship caused by Belly. He felt justified in his Cabo hookup because he wasn’t the “first” one to have created the wedge. He failed to see how wrong he was to have proposed to her in the situation they were in but was quick to think how wrong she was in accepting it. He became desperate in seeing her commitment to him as something she had to prove from time to time. He wanted himself to be the only thing she wanted and needed. He couldn’t see her as a person who was conflicted over her feelings and needed help and support. He also couldn’t let her go because what was he outside of this relationship? Then again, he felt justified in holding on to her over admitting that he was holding her back from her true love.

His first act of self love came in the form of him dropping out of the major he was never interested in to begin with and taking up a culinary gig, freeing himself from sourcing his worth from Adam.

I think he deserves our pity simply because of how he failed to even notice the wrongness in his mentality till the very end, much less admit to it. Still, his hookup with Denise rubbed me the wrong way. Why did it again have to happen after she verbally put Conrad down? Why did it have to go the romantic route at all, as if he’s incapable of feeling love in any other form but this one?

He admitted to holding Belly back, yet the part where he takes responsibility for his errors still hasn’t come. His self love feels incomplete without the presence of the grace to acknowledge and apologise. I like to believe Jenny has saved this for the movie. In some ways, I’m looking forward to his arc completion because I feel his screentime might really feel unearned without it.

Hello, I binged this show like a month ago and haven’t been able to get it out of my head ever since. Safe to say, very few characters have affected me the way Belly and Conrad have.

I want to learn more about book Belly (I do want to read the books at some point, for her inner thoughts, but not right now) because I’ve read so many people preferring her over show Belly. To me, show Belly comes across as much more nuanced than book Belly.

The finale episode of the show really made me rethink the whole show from the lens of “choices and changes,” two factors that really guide Belly's coming-of-age journey, with romance at the forefront.

S1 Belly - Already wanted to start her 16th summer with something new; she didn’t want to be stuck in her 8/10? year long one-sided crushing-over-Conrad phase.

S2 Belly - She got with the guy who gave her fireworks and came out burning herself. She was her most hopeless romantic self with him, but when the going got tough, he shut her out. She took it to mean as him rejecting her, her not being enough for him. She lost herself so much, saw how she had made everything about herself - didn’t visit Susannah until the very last minute, humiliated herself and her mom at the funeral, hurt Jeremiah, came between Steven and the Fisher brothers.

She realised that this love was not worth losing sight of everything else around her, especially when she was going to be in it all alone (Conrad’s love surely mustn’t measure enough if he could push her away so easily, without much fight, right?). Her little conversations with Conrad throughout S2 only reinforced these thoughts. So did Taylor's and Jeremiah's words.

Her choice - change herself, make amends. She was on a warpath to get over Conrad, and at the same time, there was enough history with Jeremiah for her to view him as someone she could love in a normal capacity. Someone safe and within reach, who didn’t hesitate from relying on her. They bonded over their shared grief and worked together to save the summer house. She imagined what her college life could look like, with him, at Finch. Everything felt more tangible to her with Jeremiah.

As for Conrad, his first choice wrt Belly was doing the right thing by her, protecting her, not bringing her down with his grief. His next choice was doing the right thing by Jeremiah who sounded so serious about his feelings for Belly. Also, his choice for himself being to change into a better version of himself at Stanford.

S2 BellyJere were on the same wavelength than S2 BellyCon. Even without Jeremiah in the picture, she likely wouldn’t have gone back to Conrad; there was too much shame and hurt and the feeling of helplessness there. So her decision to be with Jeremiah is independent in a lot of ways. I think this is very different from how book Belly ends up with book Jeremiah?

S3 Belly - I still think Belly was a hopeless romantic to a great extent with Jeremiah. She let him drag her down because unlike Conrad, Jeremiah was falling in the love pit with her. They developed this “us against the world” bond that pushed her towards hurting her inner circle on the way, ignoring all the red flags.

Her oath to never leave Jeremiah was born out of a lot of unhealthy feelings. She defined devotion as staying with your person no matter what, especially during the testing times. This lack of devotion from Conrad was what had hurt her in the first place; she wouldn’t do the same to Jeremiah. I think she was also overcompensating with Jeremiah what she couldn’t do for Conrad (her words to C, “I would’ve been there for you!”).

On a more lifestyle level, she kept noticing how she and Jere don’t align on many levels. But she believed that the choice she had made was challenging, but not wrong. In different ways, she had let go of her sense of self with both the Fisher boys.

I’ve seen one major complaint being how the show cut so much of book 3 Belly’s internal monologues - the concept of book Belly endlessly pining over Conrad while being with Jeremiah. If so, book Belly comes off as someone being miserable over an unattainable guy and not doing anything about it (she wasn't/couldn't?).

Show Belly was very much trying to chase her idea of growth, trying to build a life. Love was very much the central force still, in a very unhealthy way. In contradiction, Conrad had built a life outside of love; he realised his limitations (him not being able to fully get over Belly) and made sure to not repeat a Nicole situation. He kinda left it up to time to deal with his Belly emotions.

I think a major reason why Show Belly didn’t keep pining over Conrad was because it would mean that she hadn’t changed at all, after all these efforts. Both Conrad and Belly trying to get over each other is beautiful in its own way. I don’t think book Belly was trying to get over Conrad at all?

At Christmas 2.0, she let herself accept that a part of her would always love Conrad. Emotions that had been pushed down down down only threatened to flare up. Instead, she made a small room for her past love, let it exist in a small capacity to prevent it from taking over her entire heart. But we saw during Conrad pov ep just how much she had undermined her ability to ignore her feelings, how easily they resurfaced. Still, she remained so adamant about rejecting him because accepting her feelings meant accepting that all her efforts to change herself were for nothing, she would be at Conrad's mercy all over again. She couldn’t let herself be in that hopeless position again, wouldn’t bet her life like that.

Paris Belly - She didn’t back down from changing herself once again. This time, she didn’t centre herself around love. Even with Benito, she maintained her boundaries and much like what Conrad did with Agnes, she let him know that she didn’t want to start something serious with him. Only when Conrad acknowledged her independent Paris life outside of him did she allow herself to communicate her deep rooted shame and insecurity that had gotten attached to loving him. Finally, she was able to accept that changing herself didn’t have to involve burying her old self; she could be her present self and her past self at the same time; her independence and love for Conrad could coexist. Because her wanting Conrad was one of the many early things that were true about her before all the teenage chaos kicked in.

All roads led to Paris; it wouldn’t have worked if she hadn’t been deeply hurt by Conrad first, hadn’t been codependent with Jeremiah for her to build those extra boundaries in Paris. Yet, throughout, she was emotionally sincere to the best of her abilities, I think that’s why it was easy to root for her.

All changes from book to show Belly work in favour of show Belly’s journey of pursuing change and growth. I would still like to know what makes people love book Belly more, and how similar/different she is from show Belly.