#or is this an isolated problem with me and im just impossible to care abt in any capacity

[doebt]

i hate getting on insta gram or what ever and seeing posts from these people who have done such heinous things, acting like they are normal, and just like everyone else, or even better than everyone else. you hurt people! you hurt me! 

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

[SPOILERS FOR LEO’S ROUTE❗️] okay so i just got to the bit after leo reveals what he is, and mc and comte are talking on the balcony & comte offers to turn her into a vampire if she would like. obviously mc declines but i guess my question is, how do you think leonardo would react if mc DID agree to that offer? i am enjoying his route, but i kinda get the feeling he mostly/only loves mc because she is human :/ im interested abt what might happen if she didn’t say no? thank you v much💖💖ly lots

Aww, ily3 hun tyty 💕💕💕I’ll offer my thoughts below, I hope I can answer your questions to satisfaction! 

Ah yes, the point in Leo's route where I essentially get shot in the leg and limp through my walk of shame

Jk jk, but I think there has been a considerable degree of displeasure associated with Leonardo's line in the proverbial sand. No life with him can be spent as a vampire, MC must remain human. Despite his easygoing nature, he remains stalwart in his opposition no matter what the MC or Comte has to say. To summarize it quickly, Comte’s relieved exasperation at the end of Leo’s MS gets more across than I think any of my analysis can convey “Thank heavens one of you has good sense.” It offers the implication that he has tried to broach the topic with Leonardo out of concern, only to be met by a brick wall--or doesn’t try at all for fear that he’ll only ensconce Leonardo further into rejecting a greater future for him and MC.

As to how he would react I......really don’t think it would go well? Only because I think it would serve to reinforce the rifts that already exist in Leonardo’s self-perception. He would believe it was his own fault for pushing her in that direction, and while I don’t think he would hate Comte, he would definitely become estranged from one of his only close friends in life. (What GUTS ME about Comte offering to turn MC is that he is probably well aware Leo might beat the shit out of him, never talk to him again, or both--and he still fully accepts that he could lose his best friend to guarantee a future for both of them. Excuse me while I bawl in the corner) He probably wouldn’t hold it against Comte for too long, but he wouldn’t be any less aggrieved and hurt. And when Leonardo is vulnerable, he will hide and nurse his wounds until he can behave with some level of calm--or at the very least until he can pretend he’s okay after an initial explosion. He doesn’t feel comfortable troubling people with his own problems, so he tends to fall into silence when personal things come up. This doesn’t necessarily mean he resolves all of his emotional turmoil, or heals that fast; it only means that he wallows in those feelings alone unless they’re tugged out of him and worked through forcibly.

Basically, I see only one of two possibilities coming to fruition. The first is that he and MC would wobble only to completely fall apart if some kind of resolution could never be found. He’d continue to blame himself and start sabotaging his own happiness, and that would likely mean some level of selfishness directed at MC--resulting in anguish for the both of them. If MC takes on too much without complaint or Leonardo goes too far...I get the feeling that relationship would either end in shambles immediately, or result in a kind of twisted union in which both feel responsible for the other’s hurt but neither one can relieve it (until they’d be forced to split up before someone gets seriously hurt). They would be the source of each other’s suffering, so much so that the walls climbing between them might never again lower. 

This might sound odd, but if there’s one thing that Leonardo needs it’s control when it comes to his relationships with others. It is a subtle, but acute trait that might not seem obvious knowing his magnanimous disposition. He decides if MC gets to be a vampire, he bargains with Sebastian because he refuses to be a test subject, he refuses to validate Comte’s conclusions (despite knowing he’s right) because he doesn’t want to cede the power silence/smokescreens offer his emotional vulnerabilities. Even around villains like Shakespeare and the final serial killer, pay close attention. Shakespeare begins revealing deeply personal information and wishes that Leonardo holds close to his heart on purpose, snatching Leonardo’s agency and ability to control how his feelings are being conveyed. How does Leonardo respond? With explosive, forbidding anger--instantaneous and barely contained, nothing at all like his breezy attitude and calm.

If you think about it, it’s a fairly obvious extension of the humiliating powerlessness by which he was raised (he needs to be in control; he needs to be the one who decides who gets to walk away and who doesn’t. He doesn’t come on to MC because he wants to, he does it for the sole purpose of scaring her out of wanting to be a vampire. He doesn’t even attempt to explain where he’s coming from because he falls into whole-scale panic. When he loses control of the trajectory of others--of how they perceive certain things about him--all of his charisma fails him. If he can’t explain or justify where he is mentally, when he’s too afraid they won’t hear him or care, then he needs to redirect the opposing party). Additionally, he feels responsible; that he can better adjust the outcome with his experience--and while that may be true for some things, sometimes he gets ahead of himself. Only an individual can decide their own future and their own happiness, the most others can do is enhance or worsen aspects of life. He doesn’t have enough faith that his presence is positive or worthwhile enough to guarantee his spouse’s happiness ;-;

The other possibility I see is MC coaxing him as best she can into reassurance that she’s happy with her new life. While he may have doubts, there is absolutely room for her to help him approach those fears little by little. If Leonardo has even a hint of doubt in regards to his dismal feelings about her being turned, a potential for acceptance may be nurtured. I don’t think his uncertainty would ever fully vanish; there will always be a lurking fear that a fate tied to his can only mean suffering and disappointment. Prove his worth and compassion with time, and this man will be unable to remember how life was lived before her. It would take a great deal of patience and a sizable obstacle, but it wouldn’t be impossible. His heart is much too big for that, I think.

I don’t think happiness with a turned MC is impossible, only that it would take a lot of work to swing it after a heated moment of decision. I think the way to go with Leonardo is a more enduring effort. He shows much more receptivity after years of being together. I think time, ironically, helps him relax into the possibility of forever as a couple. I think he cannot conceptualize a world in which he is in love, and that this love is not conditional--not dependent on his ability to be the perfect companion, the brilliant inventor, the equanimous mentor. I think he needs to see for himself that love can be gentle and real and whole even when he’s at his worst (by his self-perception). 

Also I put some extra meta under the cut because I have brainworms and just can’t stop thinking about Leonardo rn so read if you like, but it’s more related to why he feels this way abt turning MC than necessarily about the outcome. 

That being said, I'm conflicted because I don't necessarily think Leonardo only loves MC because she's human? (Rather, I think it’s more a result of his history and the values he’s developed in response to that upbringing. But I’ll loop back to this in a bit, so stay tuned)

I say this for two reasons. Firstly, I don't want to say that no person in this period shared his values (I mean look at Comte)--this would be an overstatement, even if it was rare. But it does appear that Comte and Leonardo are acute exceptions within vampire society in elevating human beings to an equal status among vampires (if not a higher status at points or depending on the person). As such, a vampire partner he’d be comfortable living with is unlikely. Human beings are more optimal in some regards (more adaptable and more egalitarian than vampires, most likely), but he also knows that he’s more susceptible to falling in love with a human; so he makes sure to squash his feelings or remove himself when his feelings become too intense. 

Secondly, he's in close quarters with MC by necessity, and reacts to her isolation by virtue of the situation. That's probably half the reason they get together at all; he was fully intending to keep his distance despite his initial curiosity. One thing this signals to me is that even when Leonardo did feel attraction to any person he was in contact with, he would avoid them until they were removed from his presence--or he deflected their romantic approaches enough times for them to give up. With this in mind, it can come as no surprise that Leonardo has kept to himself for nearly five hundred years now. If it was another vampire hitting on him (especially a pureblood), he would be playing into his parents' expectations and would approach the vampire social hierarchy he was working so hard to escape. If they were human, he would deem himself a burden; he could never love them within the normal expectations of a human couple (growing old together, raising a family, etc etc). So ultimately I think it's less her being human, and more their compatibility and context.

As such, I think he just locks himself into a kind of Catch-22? Because in the end I think this is more about his own fears and insecurities--that he can never make someone happy, that he himself will never be enough (hello child of abusive home). Not to oversimplify his character, but one crucial element of his upbringing must be considered if he is to be analyzed properly.

There's something I often think about:

Comte, quoting Leonardo: "‘Not all parents love their children, or even think of them as such.’"  [Though he got away and was able to make a life for himself, he had to do it alone.]

There is. A LOT to unpack here. While we may not have evidence of what his familia is like firsthand, this description tells us...so many heartbreaking things. It tells us that Leonardo never once felt like anything more than a child intended to carry on a legacy. The likelihood that his insights, his feelings, or his entire self-hood were acknowledged is pretty much at a hardcore negative three. While it's been a good number of years since he was the problem child/family disappointment, I feel like so many of those experiences seep into his capacity to properly accept the love of another person. It's a good portion of the reason he struggles so intensely with being loved despite his unfathomable wealth of affection for other people. When a person is diagnosed with unlovable and cringe for having positive feelings for others, it's not really surprising that a person might have trouble accepting a commitment or attraction to another person. There is...a kind of Sisyphus dilemma that surfaces in the wake of that kind of life, a constant push + pull between craving acceptance and either expecting it’s loss and/or fearing it’s disappointment. Though he shows signs of healing from it, there are still portions that linger. (Jean-Paul shakes him from this self-berating in his MS, but after four hundred years he still struggles to overcome those instincts. I wish there were words for the extent to which that knowledge breaks my heart...Many say time heals all wounds, but sometimes I think only others can heal them.)

Keep in mind, I don't think his enduring fallacy that "human beings are the epitome of untainted purpose and vitality" is irrelevant or less problematic here. I just think it's a reflection of a deeper disturbance and loss. It's a reflection of his parents' unilateral rejection of the kinder parts of him; his devotion to patience and understanding. It's a kind of reiteration or what he's already known: he's doing exactly what his parents did in an odd way, he's rejecting vampirism whole-scale despite evidence of both pros and cons (just as it is for humanity). I will always offer that his fear of something going wrong during the change is completely valid--but it does feel more like a fear of admitting that vampires (and eternity for that matter) aren't inherently awful. He ran away from his parents for good reason of course, but for all his running he didn’t escape their black and white logic.

It’s funny too, because his absolutism is kind of reflected in his inability to commit to a single discipline in some ways; while part of it is that he probably exhausts study, I have to wonder how much of him oscillating is a fear of eventual failure. (Think his reaction to MC’s knowledge that he can’t dance, his mortification and utter...shock that she wouldn’t use it as a way to make him feel terrible about himself). He probably prefers to hone his skills helping people because the motivation of providing relief is a much more powerful motivator than knowledge for knowledge’s own sake. He needs the impetus, that drive to move him.

Granted, I won't fault anyone for feeling like Leonardo only loves MC for her humanity. At first glance it really did feel that way! But the more I think about it, the more I feel it has more to do with the weight of his life's experience, and the parts of himself he hasn’t been able to reconcile.

Sometimes, with Leonardo, I urge gentleness. So much of who he is disguises all the ways in which he has been hurt. While his decision is selfish and foolish, it comes from a broken place. My unhappiness will always lie predominantly with the fact that he believes to his core that happiness and self-respect is something he doesn’t deserve. 

[unproduciblesmackdown]

its just wild idk how to say the experience of just like...it being a wholeass fixture in your life that you’re gonna off urself...i guess in earlier times (almost been aware of being suicidal for a whole decade babes) it was also that i just...like assumed that my future was gonna involve some whole disaster that was going to wreck the whole damn thing idk. like i always knew i didnt have the kinda situation where i had somebody to fall back on no matter what & i did very much know that i had the kinda situation where if it looked like the identity ppl thought i had fell through and it turned out i wasnt thriving in all of this and actually just kinda miserable and on my own, instead of having ppl who would be There For Me No Matter What i had the ppl who would want nothing to do w me except for further beat me down..........so yeah i guess ive been feeling like my future was only Doom since like 12 def...maybe earlier if you look at it idk its like wondering when i was starting being depressed fulltime. probs like age 3 idk

anyhow the point is....hard to explain what its like having the constant sense that you don’t have a future thats good & in your control & something you want, or that even exists right. like sometimes i imagine thinking abt the future in the ways that other ppl might, in the way that you assume you’ve got a good while and that there’s things you’ll get to do that you like or you’ll pursue your ambitions or whatever and its weird i think about it for like 3.3 sec and its like tf.........its like when you get some kinda Aroma Memory where your brain remembers that smell from 18.6 yrs ago & you have a 0.62second window to try to think of where its from while you have some fleeting visual/emotive memory.......sometimes i’ll just have some kinda emotional echo from a less depressed life and its like ?????? havent had this feeling in this exact way for a minute. its weird its like lol this doesnt belong to me anymore..

anyways for another solid like.....6-7 yrs its been kind of “i’ll be surprised if i make it another yr alive” with various ups & downs in that level of surprise along the way.....more like a Down lately lmao its wild how impossible it seems to make it a few more days or weeks when youre having a worse day than usual, having an on avg Worse period that lasts for months & months and etc is just....wild baby. if you havent felt it for even a day its not something you can really imagine. if u know what its like to feel like ur gonna die for a longterm period then you know what it is..

like always, maybe this is my year baby!!! in terms of death. if im thinking abt maybe this is the year i suddenly Succeed on all fronts and i never again have to think about kms, then that’ll be a struck-by-lighting, same-shuffled-card-deck-order twice in a row, sheer chance out of nowhere. your life isnt steered towards goodness because you’re good enough or Only As Much As You Can Handle or anything and ive been too deep in it this whole time to have ever been set up to not get the rug pulled out from under me several times over and yknow once you fall down even once, unless you’re really solidly backed up, the odds arent in your favor about not getting continuously run over the rest of the time. wind isn’t really at ur back there.

like im so glad abt every person ive run into who ive had in my life for more than like 5 hrs and im lucky that i was at least born recently enough to have had the internet/texting mostly regularly from 14 y.o. onward.....if i didnt im sure i wouldve been......even so much more isolated than i was. l o l . . . . ive got to feel like some ppl care abt me which is nice and didnt happen too much before then. its also good i draw lmao coz besides for the most part thats how i talk the best & how i get in touch w most of the ppl who end up sticking around enough i talk to more than like a couple of times.....but tho of course ive never like, found arbitrary success in terms of either my own solo financial boon to transcend any and all problems or ever just like bonding w a bunch of ppl like ride or die for life baby. coz like.....why would i do either. if you werent born into financial stability, let alone wealth, and if you didnt just happen to pick up these deep unshakeable relationships along the way at times when it didnt really matter.....good luck picking those things up further along the way when stuffs even shittier. i may’ve been lucky w the internet/texting timing but i wasnt lucky w the financial crisis hit or really just being born after the 80s, economy wise......or lucky w being isolated socially since age 4 and always having to feel distanced from ppl coz i could sense the difference & stigma of being someone abused & miserable before i was even really that self aware of the extent of those things about me.........oh well. coz again w the internet and me happening to draw enough prior to age 14 that i was always considered “good” at it, and then finding that i like to draw fanart for myself lol....so i could at least connect w ppl some ways right. or via text posts sometimes lmao....and im lucky that the ‘net / having a phone gave me a medium for those things & being connected to some ppl. and im lucky im gay & not cis & got to figure that out & enjoy it coz thats the best thing abt me.......

anyways even if say life was perfect for me magically i still wouldnt be able to relate to seeing yourself pursue your ambitions coz like i always say...ive never really had those lmao. wasnt able to baby.....its like there’s always that idea that ppl whose life is defined by Survival, who’ve been exposed to trauma &/or abused, that if you drop them into a safe stable situation w/friends and all and whatever then suddenly they’ll be a “regular” person, like there’s some inherent core of everyone where they Know what its like to get to live in a healthy environment w a certain perspective on other ppl & how they’ll treat you, and if you just remove someone from bs they’ll just shift over to that Default that is like oh lol yeah im like everybody else. like nah its a whole different kind of world / life you’ve not even necessarily adapted to, maybe its what you grew in. and you can adapt to a better life & grow further in that but its not a matter of like “washing away” what came before....it can be an entirely separate thing. like if you haven’t experienced it you cant imagine it. i cant give someone a real sense of what its like to grow up within & live in an abusive place for decades. and i can’t guess who i would be if i’d grown up / lived in a completely different, better situation. coz thats a whole fundamental change from the start. it’d be such a different person that it wouldn’t even make sense to call it an alternate version of “me.”

well anyways i always feel like i’m bound to kms & that bad things are impending sooner than later & when they happen i’ll get a new set of incoming bad shit to feel bearing down & etc & i dont have things i want except a cessation of living under dread & feeling like my existence is in the way & theres ppl around i gotta be on my guard for & i’m only gonna kms eventually here, theres a long lifespan & for being to off yourself at any given time, also im jealous of ppl who’ve had a nicely sized friend group where they’ve always been able to hang out w one person at least whenever they wanted to / needed to. at least i’m gay, baby. i honestly do feel like that tweet where its like i cant kill myself b/c what if im a straight guy in my next life? @ god i cant do it. like lmao for real though......in my past life maybe i was an 80s gay. syke if i have a past life it was probably a cat. maybe a cat of an 80s gay. i can only hope