#it's My Mantle to be mature and be less spiteful and it hurts

[shenzuns]

man.

my 2022 hard pill to swallow is that sometimes being bitter is not the best result for those i care about and even though i’m angry about things, being the mature one, being the kind one though that’s Really Fucking Hard will be the best thing.

and it hurts, and it sucks, and i want to be the asshole guard dog i’ve always ever been but no one’s ever stayed in the face of my rage so i have to be kind always. and i want to be kind, don’t get me wrong, but it’s so difficult and it hurts. i would love to stew in my rage and my bitterness and my cries of ‘it’s not fair’ but i’m not given the option to be childish anymore and it SUCKS ass and dicks and this is the cruelest thing abt growing up. being kind isn’t as easy as it used to be.

[therealvinelle]

LOVE your blog so much! Your answers are amazing and so thorough. Wondering your thoughts on the Leah / Emily / Sam situation? Was there a better way this could have ended? Would it have been better for Sam to imprint on Leah, and would he if she didn't turn into a wolf? What sort of relationship must Leah / Emily have had if Emily was able to just live happily ever after with Sam? Do you think Sam secretly was attracted to Emily pre-imprint? TIA!

Sorry about the wait!

My thoughts on the Leah/Sam/Emily situation is that there were no winners and no bad guys, only losers and hurt feelings. It's angst galore.

My thoughts on imprinting, for the record.

So, to recap what happened, Sam and Leah were in a serious relationship, they started dating in her freshman year and were a big item. When Sam went missing after phasing, it was Leah and his mom who coordinated the search.

Then Sam came back and wouldn't tell anyone where he'd been (resulting in a host of rumors), Leah included. The elders soon told him what was happening, and he took up the mantle of tribe protector.

I'll just quote the book:

“Sam couldn’t tell Leah. We aren’t supposed to tell anyone who doesn’t have to know. And it wasn’t really safe for him to be around her — but he cheated, just like I did with you. Leah was furious that he wouldn’t tell her what was going on — where he’d been, where he went at night, why he was always so exhausted — but they were working it out. They were trying. They really loved each other.” (Eclipse, page 70)

Sam and Leah were struggling with their relationship, but they didn't want to give up what they had and were working on it, even with something as big as "honey, I disappeared for two weeks and now take off every night. We cool?" in the way.

It was an impossible situation, but their love was true and in any other story they would have been the Superman and Lois Lane of Twilight.

Enter Emily.

“Sam did love Leah. But when he saw Emily, that didn’t matter anymore.” (Eclipse, page 71)

Sam and Leah were over then, and through no choice nor fault of anybody. Sam was wholly devoted to Emily now, body and soul, and Leah fell off the radar.

It was an awful situation for everyone involved. Leah had been put through so much by Sam, but she loved him and was willing to put up with all of it so long as he could have him, and then he announces he's fallen for her cousin instead (whom Jake specifies was like a sister to her), after only a glance at her. That's just inconceivable. Emily was ruining Leah's relationship just by existing, again completely unwanted. And Sam was the cause of all this misery, holding all the responsibility and blame without ever getting to have a choice in any of this.

“You wanted to know what happened to Sam to make him hate the vampires for changing him, to make him hate himself. And that’s what happened. He broke Leah’s heart. He went back on every promise he’d ever made her. Every day he has to see the accusation in her eyes, and know that she’s right.” (sic)

There was never going to be a happy ending to this mess.

And then it got worse.

Sam told Emily the full truth about what was happening, but the conversation got heated and he mauled her. This ended up bringing them together, as Emily found herself falling in love with him in spite of everything. She had, initially, rejected him for Leah's sake.

So now we have a love triangle where one person gave it all for love only to lose both her lover and her sister, you have the unintentional homewrecker who gets mauled, and you have the man whose biological wiring compels him to break the heart of the woman he once loved and then sees him disfigure the woman he currently loves.

I see only losers and heartbreak here.

They're all remarkably mature about this, perhaps too much so. Leah was betrayed by Emily at first, now that she knows the truth she is putting on a brave face so aggressively that she agreed to be a bridesmaid. Leah, no, girl, don't do this to yourself. Good jesus, someone needs to get that girl ice cream and a Netflix account. And a cat.

So, to answer your questions, no, there's no better way this could have ended. That's the tragedy of it all. Everyone involved tried to do the right thing and fought for love.

Yes, it would have been better if Sam imprinted on Leah, that would be the dream ending where all the difficulty above was avoided. He could have told her the truth right away, and nothing would have gotten in between them.

Leah and Emily were close, that's the thing, and Emily's first impulse was to be loyal to her cousin. She only changed her mind when she fell in love with Sam, at which point she followed her heart. She's not a bad person for wanting to be happy. Rejecting Sam would not have sent him back to Leah.

As for whether Sam was attracted to Emily before the imprint, could be. Emily is a beautiful woman, and it's normal for straight and bisexual men to be attracted to beautiful women. It's normal to notice other people even while you're in a happily committed relationship. That wouldn't make him less devoted to Leah.

In summation, I hope the best for all three of them and don't blame any of the parties involved for what happened. Fate dealt them a cruel hand.

[inanthesis]

In this post I’ll delve into my headcanons I have about Daisuke’s past and upbringing using the loose information canon and the production team have given us about him. This won’t be super structured it’s more just me throwing all of my ideas here so they’re posted in once place so it might be a lot of rambling.

WARNING: This post will contain major plot spoilers for fkbu as well as mentions of death and mature themes in the form of self-destructive coping mechanisms. Proceed with caution.

EARLY CHILDHOOD.

From infancy to the age of 8 is the only time in his life where Daisuke can say he was truly happy.

His days, when not filled with studies from his elite private schooling, were filled with laughter and smiles as he chased his mother through the house and garden or curled up with the cat she gifted him to keep him company. His favorite thing to do, however, was play music. It is not uncommon to have found him sat at the piano preening under his mother’s praise of his growing talent. Sometimes she’d sing to accompany his playing and other times they’d sing together, but these are some of his most cherished memories.

THE INCIDENT + ADOLESCENCE.

After witnessing the grisly murder of his mother that awful, stormy night everything changed. At only 8 years old it was difficult for him to process and the situation was only made more complicated by the fact that it appeared his mother’s murderer was his father who he was told then fled to evade arrest. He knew his parents were starting to have some kind of problems as his mother had moved out of the mansion and he’d caught them fighting before but his grandmother was no help in trying to help him process his grief or confusion. Her loyalty to her son and care for the family’s image was greater than her care for her grandson’s mental health so just like that a rift formed between them that grew wider with every passing day. There was no closure to be found for him either as not long after his mother’s death it was reported that his father had died in a car crash so no justice was going to be found.

Daisuke started to act out from then, his confusion paving the way for frustration and anger at his family and his situation that he couldn’t control. If nobody was going to put him first then he was going to put himself first, beginning to shut out all outside parties and not showing a care in the world for how his words or actions may hurt them any time he was denied something he wanted. His grandmother would call him selfish, would tell him that he wasn’t acting properly as the scion of the Kanbe family, but Daisuke had already made up his mind that nothing else mattered in life outside of himself.

Eventually his grandmother enrolled him in a strict boarding school in Europe, shipping him off in hopes her misbehaving grandson would learn some propriety and become the proper heir he’s meant to be but it backfired. While abroad he realized just how much he enjoyed being away from Japan and hated the idea of taking on his family’s mantle, he was also prone to getting into trouble and getting caught drinking underage or possessing illegal substances which he used to try and feel something when everything about him had felt so empty and false.

EARLY ADULTHOOD + INDULGENCE.

Upon reaching the age of 18 he’d tried to live a normal young adult life enrolling in Cambridge University and getting into boxing but nothing really scratched the itch he’s had for a while now. Plus, the thing about having access to a literal endless amount of money is that there are no doors closed to him and instead of bothering to return to Japan he chose instead to indulge in all of the less-than-savory pleasures money can buy.

Designer drugs and absurdly pricey booze at high end parties, casinos, and clubs became his norm, as did falling into bed with any pretty man he desired because nobody ever told him no when knowing he was willing to pay literally any price to entertain them.

It was exciting for him being the center of attention even if all of the attention was superficial, people only being drawn to him for his wealth or looks or status or by the hesitant curiosity some would get when Daisuke would take up the seat at a piano in the midst of a club and belt out a melancholic, mysterious tune. None of them actually knew him or cared to know him but that was fine because Daisuke would say he didn’t know himself either. He was an empty shell of a man hoping to fill the void in his chest with every frivolous indulgence there was even if the reprieve these things gave him was only temporary.

But everything would change for him again upon receiving a mysterious package from Suzue containing information about what his parents had been up to all those years ago.

PICKING UP THE PIECES.

After living 6 years in a stupor, 24-year-old Daisuke, with his newfound determination to solve his mother’s murder, decided he would train in any way he had to in order to become a detective.

Finding a mentor was not easy when nobody would take him seriously. At every turn he was considered little more than a rich boy playing detective games but eventually he found help from an eccentric detective in England who taught him everything he needed to know. He had not entirely given up his vices, at times still falling into his bad habits when his training became too difficult or his path seemed like little more than a fruitless endeavor, but in spite of it all he succeeded and was finally prepared to take that flight back to Tokyo to face the memories he’d been avoiding for years.

And that’s how Daisuke got to where he is now. 27, resentful toward his position as scion of the Kanbe family, and an inspector at the MCPTF.