#lmao i'm supposed to be writing an essay about european colonialism in africa

[leahclearwaterdefensesquad]

Okay so I was cleaning out the drafts from my main blog and I found this old post about Leah that I made way back in fall 2018 and thought I would share. I’ll admit I edited added to it with more ideas that I’ve come up with over the past couple of years so. Enjoy, ig.

_________________________

Things I want for Leah Clearwater post-Breaking Dawn

For her to bow out of being in Sam and Emily's wedding. She's done with pretending to be happy and others ignoring her pain for the sake of their own happiness.

She's over Sam. Like ya know what? Greater things are ahead for her. That's her mindset. In fact, this is her new chapter of her life. She’s gonna do what she wanted from the start even if it’s without the person she thought was gonna be by her side for it. 

She goes to college. She makes more friends, gets a job. She does a bunch of extracurriculars, like maybe martial arts classes or clubs? Anyways, everyone starts to think of her as this utter badass?? She gets to have the College Experience that all the bullshit in Eclipse and BD wouldn’t have let her have. This is A New Chapter of Leah’s life, and she’s determined that she’s gonna make the most of what she wanted to do. 

Between her course load, martial arts classes, and work, Leah’s been so busy that time seems to pass like a blur... but she knows what she needs in order to truly heal, and that’s to take the time to work on herself. She tries calming activities not yoga that shit is a fucking workout and even considers therapy... if she can figure out a good cover story, that is.

She grows out her hair. For so long she kept it short for practical purposes, and though there may come a time where she may need to protect her tribe from supernatural entities again, she wants to grow it long again. She missed that. 

She’s been taking classes in a bunch of different subjects - environmental science and conservation because she’s furious at the harm being done to nature and wants to do something about it; law because she wants to help people and bring justice where normally the system wouldn’t do a damn thing; linguistics because she is interested in preserving languages on the verge of extinction; Native American studies to learn about more cultures and traditions. There are sm avenues she could take, she almost can’t decide what she wants to singularly focus on.

She goes home for the holidays, and it’s one of the first times in a while that she’s actually elated to be back. She can’t believe how much she missed her mom and Seth. It becomes one of the highlights of her year.

She’s no fan of the Cullens, but sometimes she stops by to check up on Jake. She’s sad for him, because she knows that the true him wouldn’t want this, but she also just doesn’t want to cut off all communication. They’ll usually go on a forest run to get some privacy(ish) to catch up on things and maybe twist her arm to take home some cooking from Esme. Leah relents, but really, she knows she’s just gonna eat her mom’s amazing food and just give it to Seth. Jake doesn’t comment.

Jake's pack treats her with some goddamn respect. The misogyny that was so rampant in Sam's pack is not so commonplace here. She's not treated as an outsider, and she's deferred to as a valuable member. She comes to realize that now that the pack isn’t as toxic to her anymore, she actually likes these guys. Even though she still thinks of them as immature boys, they’re actually not the worst when they’re not being dicks.

She travels. Like, *a lot*. Road trips, maybe even applying for scholarships for overseas. She has a whole list of places she wants to visit. South Africa, Brazil, Greece, Paris France, Japan, New Zealand... the list seems to keep growing by the day. 

She meets more supernatural creatures, including the *actual* werewolves. She starts to be well known to many of them around the globe. Turns out that there really isn’t just shapeshifters and vampires.Though she’s tried to distance herself from the supernatural world during college, she’s also aware that it’s affecting the mundane world just as much. Though she doesn’t actively seek them out stick her nose in their business, she meets them upon her travels. She doesn’t want to get involved in their shit - she’s had enough of that as it is - but she finds it exciting to actually have these encounters and see just how magical the world is. 

Feel free to add on, if y’all have the urge.