Foreword: Well, I struggled a bit with writing this chapter. It was drafted a long time ago, but I wasn't really satisfied with the direction I had taken at the time, so I had to revise a lot of things to better fit what I have planned for the future. I find the character of Rosalie very interesting on paper, even though she is rather underused (or even mishandled) in the original saga: aside from telling us that she is ridiculously beautiful—even for a vampire—that she had a horrific end as a human (with a US horror film-like rape and revenge twist), that she desperately wanted to become a mother, and that she has a terrible temper… a strong personality, we don't know much about her. The main narrators of the books—Bella, Jacob in Twilight, and Edward in Midnight Sun—having a significant grievance/resentment towards her, the portrayal is relatively ruthless (the only somewhat developed traits being her aggressiveness, her envy—particularly focused on her desire for motherhood—and her egocentrism) and lacking nuance.
I was eager to explore her character further, as even with the few elements gleaned here and there in the books, she presents very intriguing aspects: her transformation context is one of the worst possible, she is the Cullen family member who regrets her lost humanity the most, she is close to Jasper and was the one who suggested he pose as her twin (for an unspecified reason in the saga; which gives me material for enriching the canon), she has never accepted taking Carlisle's name (which denotes an ongoing grudge against him), and she is passionate about various technical and scientific fields such as mechanics, engineering, and medicine; before Bella's change, she is the only vampire in the Twilight saga to have never tasted human blood (Carlisle has, despite himself, tasted it through the transformations). Apart from Carlisle, she is also considered the vampire with the best control over her thirst: she manages, for example, to deliberately kill humans during her newborn year (when vampires are supposed to be the most unstable/hungry) without consuming their blood, and she carries a gutted human Emmett (and thus losing massive amounts of blood) two years after her transformation over miles to save him. Edward explains in, I can't remember which book, that it is her 'persistence' (he tells Bella that Rosalie's supernatural determination could almost be considered a talent in itself) that allows her to resist human blood better than others.
Anyway, all this to say that there is a good foundation for a complex character. Here is a chapter focused on Rosalie, attempting to do her some justice (and since, the more I revised, the longer it dragged on, the next chapter will be a direct continuation of this one and will also be focused on her). Happy reading!
The Bonfire of the vanities
The seer couldn't be happier than being stuck between Rosalie and Esmée on the way to a new store in pursuit of their shopping afternoon. She couldn't be happier... until she was assailed by a vision of Jasper and Emmett violently fighting in what seemed to be a fight to the death.
Alice hadn't seen it coming.
« There are people who vindicate the world, who help others live just by their presence. » Albert Camus, The First Man
Rosalie was discreetly observing her new sister while driving; she was far too calm. Something had happened.
The seer's eyes had widened in terror for a moment, and she had flinched as if someone had slapped her. Then she pretended that nothing was wrong, merely claiming that a vision had surprised her. Since then, she had locked herself in silence, a fake smile plastered on her lips, her eyes vacant.
The beginning of their girls' outing had been epic; Esme and she had had to join forces to calm the little seer, who had been practically vibrating with excitement since they left the Cullen manor. Alice was a true bundle of energy, and without the placid Jasper by her side to temper her a little, she seemed even more agitated than usual: bouncing from one idea to another and babbling at an infernal pace in her crystalline voice.
Rosalie had even wondered if vampires could suffer from headaches; after ten minutes of almost incessant chirping, during which Alice was faux-interrogating them at breakneck speed in what was actually a strange one-sided conversation where she weighed the various hypotheses brought on by her visions:
"Should we start with the dress shop on Maplewood or head north to Roseville to check out the men's clothing? I'm so glad we're shopping together! Oh, and what if we went to Woodbury first, they don't do custom clothes, so I won't find anything in my size, but I saw you finding a blouse that you'd look spectacular in, Rosalie! Or maybe the little artisan shop by the road to the golf course: they hardly have any clothes, but I'll find lovely leather accessories and maybe even a Stetson for Jasper. It'll be so funny to see him wear a hat! Oh, but I don't know where we should start, maybe Maplewood [1] would still be better to begin because…"
The dithering was endless and the flow impressive. Beyond her vampiric nature, the girl seemed incapable of containing her enthusiasm, leading to a disjointed logorrhea since they had left the house. With anyone else, Rosalie would have found this attitude detestable; here, she found it just vaguely tiring: after all, the girl had lived almost reclusively for 30 years, becoming accustomed to being very alone with herself and her visions. It wasn't so surprising that she struggled to interact and converse conventionally [2]. There was, in any case, a strange charm in Alice's whimsical attitude that made it hard to hate her or really get irritated with her. Difficult but not impossible, Rosalie was about to become truly cutting when Esme decided to cut short any argument and managed—after unusually resorting to her stern former teacher's tone, which she generally only used when Emmett broke furniture due to lack of delicacy—to calm the tiny seer enough to let her follow the course of events calmly rather than oscillate endlessly around the different possibilities presented by her visions. Her visions, far more than her boundless energy, were the thing Rosalie found truly hard to endure about Alice.
Her gift was an amazing thing to see at work, but even though it was a little less problematic to accept than Jasper's, it posed a whole set of questions for Rosalie about what remained of her free will. If Alice was telling the truth—and Edward was adamant that she was—about her visions, she had glimpses of all their lives even before meeting them because they were "destined" to meet, destined to be part of her existence. Rosalie had never wanted to believe in such absurdities: the prospect of invisible forces at work and a part of her future being predetermined, set in stone, made her feel claustrophobic.
Between Edward's gift and those of the two new arrivals, she wasn't sure if there was even a shred of real freedom left within the Cullen manor. Her thoughts scrutinized by one, her emotions felt and potentially altered by another, her future analyzed and manipulated by the last. As if this immortal existence weren't already unbearable enough without being stripped of every shred of privacy and robbed of all decision-making power[3]. Just more things that were stolen for her. It had been a long time since Rosalie had focused on her past, but the presence of the newcomers and their respective stories—the girl without a past and the boy who would probably like to forget his—brought her own old memories to the surface, pulling her into them as she gripped the steering wheel tightly.
In the first few months after she had awakened as a newborn, she had hated Carlisle with every fiber of her being for trapping her in this mockery of life. She didn't know if she would have truly preferred that he had passed her by and closed his eyes to her agony, leaving her to die that night, her body and mind shattered in a sordid alley. She would never know for sure. The only thing that mattered to her was that he hadn't given her a choice.
Not at any point.
She remembered with unsettling clarity the grave, compassionate face of Dr. Cullen on the night of her death. The strange eyes, oscillating between gold and black, fixed on her with all the sadness in the world as he lifted her broken body without a single jolt, as if he were carrying a feather. If she hadn't already met him before, she would have taken him for some sort of solitary deity, a melancholy angel; she remembered, through her ordeal, having the quiet certainty that this strange doctor was going to save her. It was her very last memory as a human before being devoured by the flames. The reassuring words he had spoken before injecting his venom, the solemn promise preceding the bite.
"I'm not going to let you die, Miss Hale. The pain will be terrible, but then you will heal. I will take care of you, trust me."
A string of lies. She was dead. She could never heal, at least not in the only way that mattered. Carlisle was not an angel but rather the strangest and most compassionate demon one could ever encounter. So no, she would never really trust the old vampire again, never fully forgive him for her transformation, and she would never take his name. She had been massacred by the man who was supposed to marry her, then had been burned alive for three days. And when, finally, the torture had ended and she had believed she was "saved," Carlisle had told her that she wasn't even human anymore. Forced to remain on earth in a half-existence because the man had played god and had chosen to turn her into a monster to include her in his personal little circus, making her a member of the eternal Cullen family. Some days, she felt like he had drained her life of all meaning, of all substance, stripping her of everything she was to expand his artificial family and avoid being alone.
It was selfishness. Carlisle was just a man, after all; no matter how saintly and altruistic he appeared, he was as fallible as the rest of them. Rosalie didn't forgive him, but she couldn't completely condemn him for this weakness either: if there was one vice she could understand, it was selfishness. After all, hadn't she condemned Emmett to a life she herself hated on a ridiculous impulse[4]? A part of her could easily excuse Carlisle's need for connections, his need to surround himself with beings like him and to create a home to cling to the remnants of his lost humanity. A family… that was essential to fight against the emptiness of an existence without value, where all capacity for growth had been taken from them: she didn't entirely share Edward's view on the vampire condition. She didn't believe in "no longer having a soul," no matter what vague concept was placed behind it; however, she fully agreed with the feeling of having been cursed—if not damned—the day she was turned into a vampire.
If Rosalie was certain of one thing, it was the absurdity of their condition. Every day, they had to fight against an insatiable need for blood, and for what purpose? Ordinary vampires spent their time massacring the unfortunate humans who crossed their path, trying to appease an unquenchable thirst: parasites, forever unsatisfied, thriving on the murder of the fragile creatures they themselves had once been. An endless existence wallowing in the blood of those who could have been their descendants.
The lifestyle proposed by Carlisle didn't offer much more satisfaction or meaning to an eternal existence, except for a pseudo-quest for virtue consisting of forever restraining their instincts to prove to themselves that they were more than the monsters he had turned them into. It was a kind of endless battle, the myth of Sisyphus: pretending to be human, resisting until eventually yielding by mistake—like Esme and Emmett—or by deliberate choice—like herself and Edward—succumbing to thirst or monstrosity, seeking to do better, restarting the human comedy; struggling until the end of time like Carlisle… or until the next misstep.
If there hadn't been a few moments of happiness lost in time and people to rely on and share this existence with, it would have been unbearable. The nearly two years she had spent with the Cullens before meeting Emmett had probably been the most painful of her life. Once her vengeance was exacted, her ex-fiancé and his gang of rapist friends buried six feet under; there was nothing left that made sense to her. The furious energy that had driven her as she planned her personal vendetta and carried out her macabre project had deserted her the moment the last aggressor was executed.
She had survived: she was alive—more or less—and they were somewhere in hell, what remained of their bodies devoured by worms.
Yet it certainly hadn't been the victory she had hoped for. The memories—now indelible—of her rape were etched for eternity in a corner of her brain. Even with her tormentors dead, they continued to torture her. It almost made her sick when she got lost in her thoughts, sometimes paralyzing her as if she were endlessly reliving the assault: hundreds of years wouldn't be enough to forget the creeping sensation of depersonalization, the staggering pain, and the searing humiliation of being treated with less care than a rag doll, left lying like a broken toy. The suffocating and paralyzing fear she had felt at the thought of dying when the assault began. Then the horror at the thought that the situation would drag on, the pain and terror continuing to increase as the men took turns. The silent prayers for it to stop, for someone to end her… and Carlisle arriving to "save" her, causing even more suffering with the continuation of her ordeal [5]. She couldn't even differentiate between the two sensations of debilitating pain; she couldn't decide which had been worse: the endless minutes of her rape or the three days of transformation into a vampire, where she didn't understand the situation and felt like she was being burned alive. Rosalie's last memories as a human were a waking nightmare; the rest already seemed distant to her, and she didn't know what to aspire to as a vampire.
She was eternal, more beautiful than ever, and now capable of crushing any man who dared to think of laying a hand on her again. But it didn't matter anymore; everything was in vain. With her revenge complete, there wasn't much left of her: nothing to desire except for trivial, material things that wouldn't survive the years, condemned to ruminate for eternity on all the future prospects that had been ripped away from her. What was there left to hope for? When she was still human, she was young, wealthy, and full of dreams, on the verge of marriage and starting a family. Now, she was haunted by horrific memories and trapped in a strange purgatory with people she barely knew, destined to live with them for decades—if not centuries or millennia if she were "lucky"—where nothing would ever change, and she would never have the chance to see her true desires fulfilled. She might not have died on April 12, 1933, but it was as good as if she had.
Of course, the fabulous future she had envisioned wouldn't have happened even if she had taken a different path that night. Even if she hadn't stumbled upon her fiancé's and his gang's little party at the worst possible moment and had remained alive, her life probably wouldn't have taken a better turn; if that night had taught her anything, it was that beneath Royce King's handsome exterior and refined manners lay a true monstrosity. If her marriage to him had gone ahead, he probably would have hidden his true nature for the first few weeks of their union, but over the months, the illusion would have dissipated, and she would have suffered. As soon as he tired of her charms, he would have revealed his true self and turned her life into a nightmare. Perhaps she would never have become a mother, or perhaps she would have had a child only to lose it, like Esme. Perhaps she was cursed no matter what life she led.
During those first months as a vampire, every empty moment of her dull days, every sleepless night, she spent brooding over all the possibilities that had been taken from her forever: her forever-lost home, her heart that would never beat again, her younger brothers she would never be able to embrace again, her mother whose smile she would never see again, the love she would never find, her belly that would remain forever empty. At the time, her hatred for Carlisle was visceral; convinced she couldn't find any solace in the eternal life that had been forced upon her, she had considered giving it all up.
At times, the thought had crossed her mind, the possibility of asking Edward to help her end her immortality… The prospect seemed appealing, and she had toyed with the idea without being able to help herself, and, of course, he had heard. He never said anything about it; not even a nod or a raised eyebrow: in those moments, Edward's only response was to play the piano, pieces full of hope and change—even if he didn't believe in them himself—until her desire to end it all faded away. She silently thanked him for that, never voicing the words out loud but thinking them. A conversation without words but with a hundred pains that neither had anything to say about.
Those few months—before her encounter with Emmett—of silent vacillation over the righteousness and method of ending her life were not exactly pleasant to recall. Despite the denials she had given Edward, it was perhaps more than anything else this that motivated the 'strange compassion' towards Jasper he had accused her of a few weeks earlier. Just five days after the two nomads had moved in, she and the telepath had a heated argument in the forest about their new additions; her brother lamented that she hadn't supported him 'on a whim' during the discussions about Alice and Jasper's integration. Edward was circumspect and always feared the situation would escalate, wanting them to remain prepared and act jointly in case of any trouble. The exchange had been sharp, but they had finally managed to come to an agreement.
'What's worrying you so much, Edward? You keep insisting that Alice is telling the truth about her visions and that they're sincere in their intentions. In that case, I'm having a hard time understanding your problem!
Her brother barely concealed his disapproval of Jasper's presence in their home, and though she was used to his generally sullen attitude, Rosalie was more than fed up with seeing him isolate himself whenever the other man appeared in his line of sight, or watching him frown in irritation every time Esme, Emmett, or Carlisle interacted with him.
'Really, Rosalie? What's worrying me? You, who usually distrusts everyone, are willing to let a nomad who has killed thousands of vampires out of pure selfishness settle in our home, and I'm the one with a problem because I'm showing a minimum of caution?
Edward's tone quivered with restrained anger. He hated the situation as a whole and had clearly decided to take it out on someone to vent his frustrations; Rosalie certainly wasn't going to let him do that without reacting.
'Selfishness, Edward? Go on, explain that to me! Spell out the conclusion your brilliant mind has led you to this time?'
'You only feel sorry for him because you think he's like you, and that's...'
There was a hint of condescension in Edward's voice that—as usual—pushed Rosalie to her limits, and she held back from exploding in rage. He certainly wasn't going to make her responsible for the couple's inclusion in their family when it was he who, as always, had surrendered, incapable of standing up to Carlisle.
'Don't give me that! As usual, you hear everyone's thoughts but are incapable of understanding them. He's nothing like me, and I certainly don't pity him. You know what I believe, don't you? You don't like him simply because you're afraid of him, and you know you can't beat him: he partially blocks your damn power, and it drives you crazy that you can't snoop into someone's head at will, that's what really bothers you! You should have insisted more with Carlisle if you didn't want them here. But of course, that would have meant confronting your beloved creator and disagreeing with him; and that, you've always been incapable of, little brother.'
She spat the last part like an insult, and Edward's eyes darkened briefly at the mocking tone of her sharp remark. He nearly growled, clenching his fists but responded in a cold and detached voice after a moment of searching for calm.
'You're right, at least on that point, Rose: I'm afraid of him, he manages to thwart my telepathy most of the time, and I probably couldn't win if it came to a fight. Neither could Emmett, nor any of you, and that should be a real problem for you. I must remind you that I've had firsthand glimpses of Jasper's battle memories. When I told you this guy was dangerous, I wasn't exaggerating in the least! Our parents are too kind and altruistic for their own good, and you know that well! I don't think they were right to welcome them into our home—no matter what Alice saw and regardless of their current pacifism—and you and Emmett shouldn't have supported their decision on a whim. I know you were bored and wanted a sister, something new, or whatever, but none of that were valid reasons to open our door to someone with so much blood on their hands! I can still admit this attitude from Emmett, but you? If it's not misplaced compassion, I don't see what could have made you lower your guard so much!'
The remark stung Rosalie more than she wanted to admit, and she retorted with her usual coldness, trying to turn the tables and not admit her relative pity for the survivor of the Southern wars.
'I'm always on my guard, and I don't trust them. Neither him, nor even her, unlike you who's already eating out of her hand: I have my reasons for accepting them into our home, and it's certainly not out of compassion.'
'Oh yes, your flimsy after-the-fact justification for welcoming them, your "utilitarian" motivation?'
Edward rolled his eyes, his tone turning disdainful as he nearly hissed the word 'utilitarian.'
'You can't deny Jasper's value as a fighter, nor the advantages of Alice's power. Keeping them in our family might be an excellent idea in case of conflict. Carlisle is a good man, but he's sometimes too naive, as you just reminded me. He's far from an expert in vampire combat, having a warrior with us could be useful in the long run: you never know what might go wrong with another clan in the future.[6]'
'Tell yourself whatever you need to if it reassures you, we both know that's far from your main motivation. You're softening with the years...'
She dismissed the offensive qualifier with a wave of her hand but gave him some leeway by agreeing with him.
'Don't underestimate me: I already have a plan to solve your "telepathic blockage" problem, you'll soon be able to rummage through Jasper's mind; in the meantime, I'll keep an eye on him while you continue to monitor Alice's thoughts. I'll be ready if there's any significant change.'
That closed the debate, and they continued to silently watch the new members of their family. By the second week of their presence, Rosalie had found an old book for Edward, teaching the basics of the Navajo code so he could gain more efficient access to the Texan's mind: as for her, there was no debate; regardless of the partial truth in his accusation about her softening, they were still on probation, and she didn't trust them, even before her brother's little speech.
But it was wrong to claim that she distrusted the boy as much as she should have. Ironically, more than Jasper's tragic story about his sister, it was what the telepath had said to warn them about the soldier that had ultimately shifted her perspective on his possible integration and pushed her to accept—against her better judgment—his presence.
" He's experienced many horrible things, his creator subjected him to unimaginable things, enough to completely unbalance him. He may seem sane, but that doesn't mean he's not on the brink of breaking down and can't snap at any moment: he was very close to suicide before meeting Alice."
Rosalie could easily see herself in the boy, in a way that was difficult to put into words: she, who had flirted with madness far more than she would ever admit when, in a fit of rage, she had sought justice at any cost, even if it meant eliminating innocents along the way; she knew what it was like to hit rock bottom. More than any other vampire she had encountered since living with the Cullens, there was something about Jasper's story that resonated with her, though she couldn't fully explain it to herself. Dragged into immortality against his will by someone who had obviously mistreated him, he had become a monster, resignedly reveling in massacres for decades. His body covered in scars, his mind nearly broken, wanting to die but unable to act on it or allow himself to be killed, even as he found no reason to continue living. Alice had finally "waited" for him and pulled him out of his misery after more than eighty years of battles, giving him hope when he no longer desired anything. It was a bit like Emmett's unexpected arrival had pulled her out of the months of latent depression that had followed her vengeance against Royce and the "collateral damage": she hadn't known she was looking for him until she found him, but once she saw him, she couldn't let go. Perhaps that was one of the so-called fruits "of destiny" Alice invoked.
Rosalie's scars might have been invisible, but they were likely as deep as those covering the former Confederate's body. The circumstances were very different, but she couldn't help identifying with the man. Surviving against all odds and clinging to a life he despised, only to eventually find love and be pieced back together by someone "too kind to be real," whose personality seemed the polar opposite of his own. Jasper reflected back to her a kind of broken and distorted mirror image. While it was futile to try and measure the level of suffering a person could endure compared to another without going insane or falling apart, Rosalie was convinced that the Southern vampire had more than his share of torment and deserved some peace and understanding from her, if not pity. Jasper had spent decades in hell, yet had retained enough humanity, somewhere within, to rise again and hope when Alice reached out to him; Rosalie wasn't sure there would have been much left of her to save after eighty years of war, but she didn't envy the boy. A part of her even admired him for the relentless, implacable determination that had kept him alive for nearly a century, even when the raw emotions stemming from his gift should have driven him to give up and let himself die. Edward's explanations about the man gave her a pretty good idea of what had constituted sufficient motivation for Jasper to keep fighting tirelessly, even when he wanted it all to end. And this intuition made it difficult for her to hate the vampire and to harbor an adequate level of mistrust.
Yet, the form of sympathy she felt toward Jasper might have been a mistake that would cost them dearly. His integration was a gamble more than a risk; a thousand things could go horribly wrong, and an awful premonition slowly rose in Rosalie as Alice's silence dragged on.
For the past few minutes, the car had continued along its path in uncomfortable silence; Rosalie continued her drive toward the next store, deliberately choosing not to comment on the very perceptible change in atmosphere: never reveal your hand to your opponent without having all the cards; especially if the opponent in question could cheat at will by predicting your actions and anticipating your words.
The frail vampire was staring at an invisible point through the window: her usually joyful face frozen in a strange, absent half-smile, while her blurred eyes suggested that she was still fluttering between visions; her slightly tense body revealing an intense concentration. Esme, sitting in the passenger seat, had also noticed the sudden shift in atmosphere and was slightly frowning, worried about the sudden silence of her new daughter.
"Is everything alright, Alice? I didn't mean to upset you when I asked you to slow down and try to stop sharing all your visions at once. I was having a little trouble keeping up with you, but I never wanted to stop you from expressing yourself!"
Of course, her adoptive mother thought she had hurt the girl by urging her to be calm; Rosalie had far darker theories in mind. Esme's gentle voice seemed to have pulled the girl out of her half-dream: she shivered almost imperceptibly before turning an empty gaze toward the rearview mirror. She gave them a reassuring smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, still fixed and distant, focused on invisible images. Her light tone sounded horribly hollow to Rosalie's ears. She remained silent, falsely unperturbed. The girl was deliberately keeping quiet about what she was seeing, and what she was seeing was clearly bad; Rosalie could sense a vague tension emanating from her slender frame. Like an invisible wave disturbing the air around them.
"Oh no, everything's fine, don't worry. I'm just lost in my thoughts and some hypothetical futures. I'm not upset, I just sometimes have trouble detaching myself from my visions, but I'll try to live in the moment as you suggested!"
Hypothetical futures? Trying to "live in the moment"? The girl was a poor liar, her tone was too controlled and distant to be sincere. This vague and falsely cheerful speech only heightened Rosalie's concern. Her intuition of an impending disaster. Something really bad was going to happen—or had already happened—and Alice was hiding it from them.
Edward had apparently been right after all; they had made a gross mistake in allowing the nomads to settle with them: Jasper was dangerous, and Alice, evidently, untrustworthy. Rosalie felt her anxiety swell, but she crushed it to continue acting pragmatically and effectively. As she silently parked in front of the next store, her mind racing, she analyzed all possible scenarios and began to consider her next actions. She absolutely had to stay calm and not make any decisions if she didn't want to trigger the seer's power [7].
She felt a cold determination settle within her. No matter her bitterness toward her immortal existence, she wouldn't let anything threaten what she had built. She wouldn't let anyone destroy the family she had come to sincerely love over the decades: Emmett, Esme, Carlisle, and Edward were the only people who mattered to her; the only ones who justified her continuing to walk the earth when her body should have long since crumbled to dust. If something happened to any of them—especially Emmett—because of her lack of vigilance, she would never forgive herself. She wouldn't lose those she held dear out of vanity.
Rosalie was on high alert, ready for battle. It was time to act and deal with the seer if she posed a threat. She got out of the car and flashed a bright, fake smile at Alice, her tone amused and enthusiastic.
"Well, Woodbury awaits us. You're going to show me that blouse I'll look spectacular in!"
Let the war begin.
Comments :
"The Bonfire of the Vanities" is, of course, borrowed from the title of Tom Wolfe's novel.
[1] Yes, there really are cities close to each other in Minnesota named Maplewood, Woodbury, and Roseville… that's my silly attention to detail ;) In this story, I place the Cullen house somewhere in the forested area south of Hutchinson, which is about a 90-minute drive: Alice's vision of Jasper and Emmett's fight triggers when they are still on their way from the first store.
[2] Alice spent almost 30 years nearly entirely isolated, apart from Jasper—whom she met less than two years before this point in the story—she only encountered two other relatively uncivilized vampires (Peter and Charlotte, whom Jasper introduced her to in '49) and isn't used to socializing. Even though she's naturally sociable, I imagine she must have serious communication issues and be highly dependent on her visions (which only give her fragmented clues on how to interact with others) when she first joins the Cullens.
[3] Honestly, the lack of privacy among "ordinary vampires" already seems catastrophic to me: they are described as being overstimulated by their supernatural senses (notably their hearing, which allows them to overhear conversations from nearly a mile away, and their extraordinary minds, which enable them to process multiple pieces of information simultaneously and retain every insignificant detail in memory); overwhelmed by noise, smells, and visual details not directly in their immediate surroundings; without ever the possibility of escaping this "invasive" environment by succumbing to sleep. With the Cullens, the problem reaches a whole new level, with "privacy" being more of an abstract concept when you live with a telepath, an empath, and someone who can predict your future as you make decisions... I agree with Rosalie that immortality in the Twilight universe is quite the poisoned gift :p
[4] We'll revisit in the next chapter what motivated Emmett's rescue/transformation; I find the information about this quite interesting.
[5] Frankly, I repeat, I think Rosalie has the worst and most traumatic change of all (even though Alice and Esmée's transformations are also particularly harsh... it seems Meyer had it out for her female characters and loved to make them suffer) in the saga. When Carlisle finds her, she has just lived through hell, is agonizing, and is in complete shock. I believe, in the confusion of the moment, she doesn't understand anything Carlisle is saying. The transformation just adds another layer to her trauma: she goes from one ordeal to another, from one indescribable pain to another. And, knowing that the last human memories are the ones that persist the most in a vampire's memory post-transformation, it's easy to understand her resentment towards Carlisle (transforming Rosalie is probably the biggest mistake he made in his life as a kind vampire) and her enmity towards Edward upon waking up when she realizes "why" Carlisle saved her. If you had forgotten this detail—or never knew—it will also be discussed in an upcoming chapter.
[6] I think Rosalie, known for her pragmatic and calculating mind, could easily justify accepting Alice and—especially—Jasper out of utilitarianism. She knows that Carlisle, with his pacifist nature, is not necessarily the most capable of protecting against external threats. With her traumatic past, I think Rosalie dreads more than anything being in a position of weakness again (if there's a vampire among the Cullens who would absolutely want to learn to fight/be able to defend herself in case of conflict, I think it's her); Jasper—if he can be controlled—would represent a kind of life insurance against possible dangers. In this sense, Rosalie's acceptance of Jasper might not simply be an act of kindness/pity, but also a coldly calculated decision, a security measure, to strengthen her clan against future threats.
[7] Even after rereading the saga multiple times, what triggers or doesn't trigger Alice's power remains quite nebulous; trying to circumvent it must therefore be a delicate maneuver (although some succeed by preventing themselves from making decisions).
See you soon (I hope to better meet my self-imposed deadlines) for the next part!