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twstheadcanons · 2 years

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What do you think about his recent character development throughout the story and events!!

It Is Done.

The link is the docs version complete with headings for easier navigation, but the entirety of it, against my better judgment, remains under cut. It is 33 pages long. Press read more at your own risk.

Leona has changed, it’s not as prevalent as the changes the others undergo. As someone who despises vulnerability and showing anything that can be taken as a weakness, it’s important to note that oftentimes, Leona’s actions and words contradict each other, and even his motivations behind those actions aren’t always as noble or admirable as others. He’ll either prioritise the value he gets out of acting a certain way, or disguises basic acts of decency behind his trademark shrewdness so that people (especially Ruggie) can’t get on his ass by hanging over his head any tidbit of perceived consideration Leona’s not one to display. He is, after all, based off Scar, an egotistical narcissist hungry for power that values his own wit more than anything else.

While Leona isn’t, generally, as extreme as Scar, he’s one of the closest characters to that ‘morally grey’ appeal the seven incarnates are meant to exhibit. This is why, for all his popularity, there’s a pretty stark split in opinion on Leona. He’s very much a self-absorbed dick to others majority of the time, but when he’s willing to assist others, his intelligence and observational skills generally make him invaluable, more so when he’s motivated to do so. Leona’s a man that doesn’t shy away from commanding others because he knows he’s good at it, it feeds his need to dominate others and relish in the acknowledgment they give him when his strategies work.

Leona’s sly, cunning, shrewd nature acts as both a strength and a weakness. While his intelligence allows him to quietly observe a situation and recognise an effective solution to it. Even though he’s abrasive and disinterested in supporting others, he’s still capable of understanding other students’ quirks and nature, such as with Jamil’s resentment towards Kalim or the fact that Azul’s bluffing when it comes to his ‘indestructible’ contracts. The key being that, at a distance, Leona can easily and quickly devise a strategy against obstacles. In the heat of the moment or directly confronted, his pride makes him lash out, and he’s far from the most logical or pragmatic of the bunch.

Frankly, unlike Scar, Leona’s true goal isn’t becoming king. What Leona wants is recognition for his past efforts and obvious strengths. He’s intelligent, powerful, and thrives best when presented with meaningful situations with clear goals (as in, he can’t stand tedious busywork without any real substance to them/cannot benefit from them). If he’s challenged in a way that interests or benefits him, Leona’s quick to react (knowing he can use Yuu’s situation with Azul to his advantage in getting rid of his contract with Azul), and takes great satisfaction in it. Magift appeals to him as a strategic, competitive sport, as opposed to its physical aspects. Remember, this guy plays chess alone as a hobby.

However, born into a royal family as a second son, Leona faced countless scenarios where Farena, the successor to the throne as first prince, always seemed to get priority over Leona. With so much emphasis on sculpting and monitoring the first prince, Leona felt that his brother constantly overshadowed him, and he could never properly stand out, making Leona bitter and resentful. His jaded attitude made him all the less appealing to his family and the royal staff, and the Unique Magic he was born with further alienated him. With every alternative seeming inferior compared to his brother’s position (not to mention the person he resents suggesting those alternatives), Leona recoiled and fell into his current mindset: that one’s best efforts aren’t enough against a seemingly predetermined fate.

This spills into his everyday life – academics that he could easily excel in, his leadership skills, etc. Malleus’ trumping him in Magift, something Leona’s so confident in and puts real effort into, ends up affecting his enjoyment, becoming another ‘barrier’ that he knows he can’t overcome (for all his skill and intelligence in Magift, Malleus has pure physical and magical strength on his side). His academics suffer because Leona already knows he’s intelligent enough to surpass the material taught, he doesn’t feel challenged, and furthermore, even if he did become a proper fourth year, pursuing an internship or anything having to do with his future ultimately forces him to seriously consider his own self-sabotage at home with his attitude, which his pride won’t allow.

There’s a reason his episode is where it is – he obviously can’t be first, because that leaves Yuu in a piss-poor situation where nearly the entire dorm supports Leona’s bullshit with sabotaging other dorms through physical means. Ruggie’s a no-go for assistance – he’s Leona’s right-hand man and Yuu and Grim have basically nothing to offer him. Jack’s a no-go because his edgy loner attitude would make it nigh impossible for Yuu and Grim one their own to get him to cooperate, hell, it barely works with Heartslabyul’s help in the canon story.

He can’t be the character that assists Yuu and Grim during Episode 4, either. Jamil’s School Uniform story makes it very clear that Leona can see through Jamil like a fish in a glass bowl. Leona comes from a royal bloodline, he’s probably seen or heard all about attempts to take out leaders of the past and whatever else. He can recognise Jamil’s only tolerating Kalim whilst on the brink of snapping and having already started predetermining exactly how he’s going to get Kalim out of his school life and how deep that resentment for Kalim goes. So if you put Leona in Episode 4, it’s going to be 20 parts long and Jamil’s already mcfucking losing it by part 15 because Leona’s experience with his type of person, not to mention Leona’s clear knowledge of magic, would make him able to point out ‘hey the albino’s being hypnotised’ faster than a cone snail has you explaining your browser history to St. Peter.

He is fundamentally unhelpful in Ep5 because this man loves giving Vil grief and in turn, while he’s certainly someone that can relate to Vil’s frustrating of never being able to surpass a perceived rival, both of these characters share the sentiment that sometimes your best just doesn’t matter to others. Compared to Kalim’s philosophies, Leona’s don’t help push Vil in a better direction. Too much of what Leona believes, says, and does would only antagonise Vil further.

Him assisting in Octavinelle is the best option. Everyone Yuu’s befriended or acquiantanced with (Adeuce and Jack) are highly inexperienced and lack the necessary knowledge to deal with someone like Azul’s. His magic appears impossible to overcome because that’s how Azul presents it (especially to first years, because Azul knows their inexperience works in his advantage, and while he’s basically a glass cannon, he has the Tweels that occupy the group majority of the episode. Leona’s reluctance to get involved aside, there’s the fact he made a contract of unknown means with Azul, and that in itself makes it clear just how desperate Leona was to regain the glory from Malleus in Ep2. Giving him this motivation to involve himself for his own reasons, rather than to just help out the first years, offers more insight to Leona’s moral compass.

While his actions may be for the best of others, he’s ultimately in it for himself as his main motivation. He’s discussing Azul’s personality, the group’s circumstances, et cetera and giving them ideas of what move to do next not only because it’ll help them, it helps him get them all out of his hair and plan his own counter against Azul for his own needs. It’s not just to help Yuu and others out. He wants his damn bedroom back and more importantly to be rid of his contract with Azul. Leona weighs pros and cons before acting majority of the time. In this instance, knowing he knows more about Azul’s UM than the present cast, he’s determined he’ll inevitably come out on top no problem – Azul’s overblot notwithstanding.

A key thing to Leona is that he’s something of a hypocrite, rejects vulnerability, he’s notoriously defensive against personal attacks on his character despite having it down to an art form against others. He can’t take criticism and doesn’t want to be controlled by others, despite having a reputation as a brilliant strategist that can recognise others’ weaknesses (in most situations, but he’s prone to underestimating others based off appearance, which is generally a major weakness of his and gets him into shit with characters like Vil and Lilia). He wants acknowledgement, but only when he thinks it’s guaranteed without complaints souring his mood.

Listen, Leona's a 20 year old man, there is time for change, but mentally speaking, Leona’s very set in his own ways, habits, and motivations. He’s never going to be a completely ‘good’ person, he’s always going to be someone mindful of what benefits him the most. He has standards, certainly, but while those standards are sometimes praiseworthy, it’s important to note that, for Leona, those standards stem from what does and doesn’t satisfy him – he doesn’t gain anything seriously trying to hurt people he perceives as weaker than him, for example. As far as academics go, he finds it boring and tedious to put his effort into lessons he already knows the ins and outs of. The man likes competition and challenge, that’s what gets his wheels turning, be it showing what he’s made of in Magift or using his wit to gain something out of a challenging situation.

This makes his changes more difficult to recognise – because these changes are things he doesn’t want people to notice. He doesn’t want to exhibit anything that can be taken as him admitting to his faults, most importantly because he doesn’t want to face that side of himself. The side of him that knows he shoulders the blame for holding himself back because the opportunities he received were from the person he resented, like Farena trying to open his eyes to the myriad of options Leona had before him within royal duties. If he admits to that, he has to face the years he robbed himself in his own inferiority complex and depression.

So it’s important to go through his personal stories with a timeline in mind. Yes, assigning a timeline to the event stories is always a slippery slope, because many of them play up characters’ worst traits and makes it seem like they’ve ‘regressed’, when in reality it’s to reflect the simple fact that people don’t completely change lifelong habits they’ve developed. For someone as prideful and defensive as Leona, his changes are even more subtle for his own comfort.

For the sake of having guide of continuity, we can at least divide personal stories between ‘before’ or ‘after’ Episode 2 takes place. The initial cards for characters all refrain from completely spoiling or contradicting characters’ personalities within their respective episodes. They can show the best and worst of the characters (dorm leaders especially). Meanwhile cards afterwards can give hints towards them changing (Jamil tends to be a big hint towards this, since things like his Fairy Gala or Halloween cards mention his resistance to being friends with Kalim, or his softer praise for Kalim’s efforts during the first Halloween event – all things he wouldn’t have done had they been before Ep4 [despite Halloween definitely being before winter break but that’s on Toboso, not me]).

With that said, we go under the impression that his school uniform, gym uniform, lab, and dorm ssr all occur before the events of Ep2 rear their ugly head. After all, a lot can happen in one month, so Leona has plenty of time to simmer before the Magift Interdorm Tournament rears its ugly head. The only card I want to ‘go out of order’ for is his birthday SSR, since that provides a bit more information on his family, why he likes chess so much, and his decision on entering NRC. This’ll be the only card I don’t go super in-depth on, since majority of the points it brings up come into play later on.

So without further ado, let’s get into this shit.

Birthday SSR

Birthday cards serve to elaborate characters’ families (unless you’re R**k), interests, and other extra bits of information about, them like their goals for the future. They add extra context to their preferences as well. Since this isn’t technically an event, his character development here could arguably go either way. But I think it’s important to note Leona at least answers honestly and isn’t rigid about the questions, hell, he even tries to mess with Yuu at one point with his own brand of a ‘joke’ that plays into his rough reputation in NRC.

Part 1

Leona explains the gifts sent to him by family. A generous amount, but he hasn’t bothered with them because he doubts they suit his tastes. The only gifts he brings up specifically are Cheka’s past gifts, which he has to pay mind to lest face the wrath of his sister-in-law (which he does this year because he hadn’t checked it) and an illustrious rug Farena sent him. Of course, it’s Farena-adjacent, so Leona has to complain about it, questioning why Farena has the time to bother sending something so exquisite to Leona when he has a country to help run and could’ve given the rug to a different country as a gift to improve friendly relations, and claims Farena’s ‘concerns aren’t in the right place’.

We also get hints of this in Leona’s History Lesson lines, where he has a couple of instances where he mutters to himself what makes an effective king and leading one’s country. While Leona’s not usually upfront about it, he does care about his country, namely its politics and relations with other countires, especially since, again, he has his doubts about Farena’s seemingly ‘laid-back nature. This of course is just Leona’s opinion on Farena, a person he’s long held biases against. Not to mention, Leona isn’t there to see how Farena assists the country in their ill father’s stead. Leona just has this particular image in mind for a king, and his elder brother doesn’t fit it. It both annoys and, to a point, concerns him.

Part 2

Leona explains his reasoning for becoming Savanaclaw’s dorm leader: he didn’t want to answer to anyone he considered ‘small-fry’, and didn’t want to share a dorm room. Not being able to do as he pleased bothered him, and his vibes were so rancid his roommates were ‘begging’ him to become Dorm Leader and get the hell away from them – or so Leona claims. He proceeded to challenge the Dorm Leader during his second year, won, and became leader since then. Bear this in mind when it comes to Savanaclaw’s blood grudge against Diasomnia during Ep2.

Part 3

Here, Leona does the impossible and brings up something he actually likes: chess. He finds it fascinating to study the board, look at his opponent strategy, piece together their game plan. And when it comes to chess problems, the feeling of developing a new strategy against something in the middle of already solving it is irresistible and satisfying to him. He’s been playing since his childhood, likely as a way to stave off boredom before it became something that simply clicked with him. And the way he describes why he likes chess ties into why he likes Magift – being able to outsmart and outmaneuver his opponent before they can blink. It’s the rush of outdoing others – especially the unsuspecting – that Leona enjoys, just like how as a child, he loved to win against adults that always underestimated his skill.

He also elaborates his enrollment into NRC. The first year he received admission, he ignored it. He knew he learned majority of the standard and advanced information from royal education, so he saw no point in wasting time reviewing what he already knew (and thus we tie back into how Leona’s isn’t challenged as school, so he doesn’t pay it any mind). The following year, however, Cheka’s born, and with that comes the renewed fanfare of the country’s future king, and Leona ‘losing his place’ even further, nor did he have any interest in being obligated to spend time with Cheka when he didn’t want to.

Not to mention – he just dislikes kids. Staying home didn’t appeal any longer, so that year is when he enrolls, at around 17 as a first year. His first time as a third year he would’ve been 19, but his skipping classes resulted in repeating a year. But Leona doesn’t regret this decision – he says that deciding to attend NRC might’ve been the right choice, and he says so with a smile.

School Uniform R – “Nobody Ever Taught Me Any Manners”

Brief Breakdown: This card focuses on Leona’s relationship with Vil, being that the two appear to be polar opposites and can’t get along, despite also establishing that they’re essentially foils to each other. Leona’s conflict with Vil reveal a lot about both of them, so this’ll be a lengthy section from the get-go. Vil doesn’t appreciate Leona’s stubborn refusal to join him in NRC’s newspaper photo meant to showcase the dorms and its leaders. Leona appears especially against it by having to stand next to Vil. Leona doesn’t take the photo as seriously as Vil does, but Vil refuses to let him get out of it. Exasperated with Vil’s lecture, Leona reluctantly relents to simply get it over with, but Vil stops him when he notices one of his buttons hanging on by a thread, and tells Leona to fix it since it looks ‘tacky’.

Further annoyed and insulted, Leona refuses to oblige. Vil proceeds to hit a sore spot by scolding Leona and determining that Leona’s background as a prince means he never had to do anything for himself, which appears to irritate Leona more. Leona decides to merely take off the vest and make Vil fix it himself, and when Vil refuses to do so, Leona claims that since ‘he wasn’t taught any manners’, he should let someone as classy as Vil fix the button instead. He goes even further by pointing out that seeing Leona disheveled next to him may reflect poorly on Vil.

While this works on Vil, he calls Leona nothing more than a prop for a photoshoot that he has to tend to, but Leona retorts that Vil should be thanking him for being ‘such a fine prop’. Vil notices the button is different from the rest of the vest buttons, assuming Leona actually has fixed the vest before. However, Leona doesn’t know what Vil’s talking about, and reveals that whenever a button falls off his vest, he simply discards the vest somewhere, and then soon enough it’s fixed again.

Vil determines Ruggie fixes the vest in Leona’s stead, but as Leona hasn’t taken notice to who’s fixing it, he says it’s all the same in the end so long as the vest is fixed. Ultimately, Vil gets frustrated with Leona’s callous, spoiled attitude.

Coming from a royal bloodline and surrounded by formalities, servants, and ceremonies, Leona’s disillusioned by formal obligations, such as Night Raven College’s Dormitory Introduction for New Students, which requires all dorm leaders to take a photo and present themselves as the ‘face’ of their respective dorms. Leona finds no value in the act, not seeing it as a ‘big deal’, especially when compared to royal obligations and ceremonies he’s likely familiar with back home. A school newspaper doesn’t elicit any sense of urgency in Leona, and thus he feels indifferent towards it, not wishing to participate.

Furthermore, even after Vil points out the flaw in his vest, Leona doesn’t care. To him, something as small as a misplaced button hanging on by a thread is no big deal. It is replaceable, and to the average person, neglectable.

It isn’t until Vil determines that Leona’s royal background means he’s seldom had to do things for himself that Leona’s demeanour changes. Vil’s comment that his falling button looks ‘tacky’ sparks Leona’s usual indignation, but when Vil goes for Leona’s background, Leona falls silent. He recognises that stubbornness won’t work with Vil, someone who’s worked his ass off to remain successful and relevant in show business. Nor does Leona’s temper scare Vil off, and instead the two are at a stalemate of neither wanting to back down.

So, instead of persisting in this argument, Leona decides to turn the tables. Ultimately, Leona is a man of strategy, not force. He knows his strength, reputation, and arrogant speech may make most people back off, and he certainly enjoys spurring people on, but he knows how powerful the right words in the right place are.

Not only that, but Leona also loves to redirect blame off himself. Yes, he ‘doesn’t know’ (we know very well he does) about basic manners – but that’s not his fault, he wasn’t taught them. So it’s only right Vil does. After all, the saying is ‘if you want something done right, do it yourself’ – and Leona knows how particular about details Vil can be.

That aside, while we don’t know if Leona knows how heavy Vil’s personal baggage is, he does know about Vil’s reputation in school – a cool beauty with an overbearing personality, who only cares about himself – which isn’t very different from Vil’s typecasting as villains/antagonists. Leona’s able to determine that, given Vil’s popularity, there are certain expectations he’s tied to in the public spotlight.

If Vil, known for his good looks, is seen with someone neglecting their appearance in a photoshoot, people are going to talk. Whenever Vil scolds people for their bad habits, it’s frequently framed as something Vil himself can’t accept or deal with as a personal inconvenience. Leona may not know about Vil’s personal issues, but he can tell he hit a sore spot by putting Vil’s own integrity on the burner – something Vil himself does his fair share.

Leona turns the tables on Vil by attacking a vulnerable part of Vil’s character – his reputation, and how people impose that cold, harsh image on him regardless of his own hard-work. He uses this to his advantage, alleviating himself the trouble of fixing his own vest (which, after initially agreeing to participate in the shoot to avoid Vil’s complaints, he can’t really back out of now lest he gives Vil an excuse to go after him more), and the satisfaction of knowing he’s hit Vil’s sore spot. For someone with Leona’s ego, this counts as killing two birds with one stone. He plays this up by claiming Vil should be grateful he finally complied with Vil’s initial demand.

But Leona’s enjoyment remains short-lived, the moment Vil notices something else, Leona’s back on the defence. While Leona knows what to say to get a quick, hard blow on Vil, Vil ultimately emanates something Leona cannot stand. This is why it speaks volumes when, after being nagged by Vil, Leona eventually relents in the card. Vil’s ability to recognise a person’s flaws is a powerful thing. Leona Kingscholar cannot and generally will not accept criticism, meanwhile, Vil shoulders the weight of hundreds of pieces of criticisms in an effort to constantly be his best self and improve.

It’s no secret that Leona and Vil act as foils to each other – wealthy individuals with well-known relatives and high expectations put upon themselves. Two competitive people with self-imposed ‘rivals’ (Farena to Leona, Neige to Vil) that they haven’t been able to outdo since childhood, and hold grudges against for always coming out on top of them. You can even say that their relationship with their respective first years foil each other. Epel looks up to Leona’s tough-guy persona and rejects Vil’s outlook on masculinity vs femininity. Jack respects Vil’s hardworking persona and rejects Leona’s underhanded methods. Both are dorm leaders that don’t shy away from a fight, the difference being Leona knows he looks and acts strong whilst Vil knows he’s the definition of ‘looks are deceiving’, but he can use this to his advantage in a physical altercation.

However, in the end, Leona develops this lackadaisical, lethargic, indifferent attitude and acts as if he doesn’t actually care about what people think about him (he absolutely does, his pride contradicts this every time he’s angry over what people say to him, making this paradox of Leona not wanting to care, but resenting being talked down to – he’s backed himself into a corner by his extreme pride thanks to his own defeatism).

In contrast, Vil has to care about how people think about him, but he’s grown thick skin to either brush it off or work towards improving himself. Leona’s resistance to criticism puts him on the defence and sparks his temper, whereas Vil’s deference to rightful criticism pushes him forward, something Leona can’t relate to after falling into a defeatist attitude towards his position as the second-born of a royal bloodline. His past efforts haven’t measured up to anything, unlike Vil, who’s still been able to make a name for himself.

Despite being proud of his own intelligence, good looks, strength, and overall competence when he applies himself, Leona loses motivation to put it into practise, he’s led himself to believe that despite his best efforts, someone else will always steal the limelight with, from Leona’s perspective, ‘less effort’ (Farena’s aiding country affairs in place of their ill father despite his ‘laid-back’ attitude solely due to being the first-born; Malleus inducted into the Hall of Fame despite his ‘skill’ in the game being solely his physical and magical strength). Leona has a great deal of knowledge on his country’s politics and relationships with other countries, and likewise knows a great deal of the strategic value in Magift – but in both situations has no chance to ‘prove himself’ and have his efforts acknowledged, overshadowed by people ‘greater’ than he is ‘by default’, and the sentiment that both Farena and Malleus are the direct heirs of their respective kingdoms.

Not to mention, in the case of Leona, ever since Malleus’ entry to NRC, Savanaclaw, once a dorm widely praised for its athletic students and outstanding performance during Magift tournaments, it’s lost that position by Diasomnia solely because of Malleus’ involvement. Not only does Leona essentially lose a source of pride (his dorm’s reputation in sports), he has to deal with Malleus’ performance and fame essentially hurting Savanaclaw’s public reputation under Leona’s leadership, despite his efforts, which not only hurts his pride, but could eventually effect potential scouting for students in his dorm. Leona isn’t known for being the most considerate individual, but he still recognises the huge L that Savanaclaw suffers due to Malleus constantly murking the competition whilst barely lifting a finger. As the strategist and watchtower on Savanaclaw’s magift team, Leona shoulders that weight as their leader, alongside it robbing him of his own spotlight – all despite his best efforts.

This is pivotal to him resorting to sabotage in Episode 2. Leona’s own efforts and skill have gotten him nowhere, and his jaded personality makes others wary to trust him, something he antagonises rather than works on despite knowing it’d work in his favour – and so he uses underhanded methods to regain that one taste of glory he’s likely clung to since entering NRC. The judgements he received within the family and its servants drove his jaded, bitter personality, and for his own sake he hardened himself to block that out. But as a result, he rejects criticism, and in turn has a habit of dismissing, or even blaming others, for his shortcomings.

In a sense, he’s like a perfectionist that can’t or won’t start something that they know they can’t get right the first time, but instead of striving for unobtainable perfection, Leona wanted to strive for some sort of acknowledgement for his efforts with no strings attached. Since he’s come to believe this isn’t possible, he generally prefers not to ‘waste his time’ with the work inherent to it. This likely started as a bitter child and adolescent rejecting criticism for his personality and efforts as a means of protecting himself, but festered into fostering a young man who rejects others’ input and ‘unnecessary’ work since he likely anticipates criticism no matter what. He’s closed himself off from others, and, despite his own skill and intelligence, this is ultimately a detriment to his progress as a person – he can’t get anywhere if he remains in his own head when it comes to how others perceive him without making an effort to change his simplest of flaws.

This mishmash of Leona’s pride and arrogance constantly goes clashes against his resistance to doing the simplest tasks asked of him – he knows he’s strong, intelligent, and powerful, but the effort behind proving that has, in his past, not gotten him as far as he desired, and so now he’s convinced himself the energy required isn’t worth it for menial tasks, and he’s using his position in Savanaclaw to revel in stereotypical royal luxuries (being able to shirk off mental tasks to others [Ruggie]). Leona knows damn well he’s put himself into a corner he could get out of any time he pleases, and it’s that frustrating fact that embitters him all the same, so he only indulges it when it directly and immediately benefits him, gets others (Vil) off his back, or, in regards Magift, is in a situation where his skills are acknowledged without question or challenge from the rest of the team.

Ceremonial Robes SR Card – “Keep Dreaming”

Timeline: After the Ceremony Brief Breakdown: This card focuses on touching upon Leona’s relationship with Ruggie, their viewpoints against Silver’s earnest, sincere approach, Leona’s vendetta against Malleus, and, briefly, his family’s attempts to keep in contact with him. After the Ceremony, Leona wraps up rounding up Savanaclaw’s first years and orders them to go through the mirror. Ruggie tries to discuss Yuu and Grim’s arrival, but Leona has no interest in either of them as he views them both as weak and uninteresting. At the moment, all Leona cares about is getting out of the robes, which are uncomfortable to him. Before he can leave, Silver approaches, asking if Leona’s seen Malleus. However, we see here that Malleus grudge against Malleus extends to the rest of Diasomnia, and especially Malleus’ main entourage, and he has no intention of helping Silver, who, somehow, has mistaken the two dorm leaders as ‘friends’, much to Leona’s chagrin. Despite Leona’s corrections, it doesn’t get through to Silver, and Leona asks Ruggie what Silver’s deal is, to which Ruggie explains that, alongside Kalim, Silver’s known for his ‘easy-going’ vibe, and adds it’s hard to deal with when you’re an impatient person (hint: Leona is an impatient person). Leona tries to get Silver off his back, saying he and Lilia are both overprotective of someone as powerful as Malleus. Silver, god bless his soul, still insists Leona help him find Malleus. Realising that Silver won’t back down, Leona quickly makes up a lie about last seeing Malleus in the Botanical Garden. It’s a blatant, half-hearted lie, Leona even tells Silver it’s up to his discretion if he believes Leona or not, but Silver decides to give it a shot, and even Leona’s rather exasperated by Silver’s earnest personality, pointing out he never said he last saw Malleus in the garden that exact day. Ruggie lightly teases him for being so deceptive to someone like Silver, but Leona deflects this by saying Ruggie could just help Silver out if he cared that much, predictably, Ruggie declines. Here, we establish that Leona and Ruggie have a decent understanding of each other – they both prioritise their needs above others. With Silver out the way, Leona proceeds to return to his room, but not before Ruggie reminds him to change out of his robes before crashing. Of course, Leona knows this, and complains about Ruggie’s usual nagging. They both relate that for them, and presumably most beastfolk, the robes are uncomfortable for their ears. However, Ruggie urges Leona not to just toss them around anywhere, as his room is a hellhole of dirty clothes as is. To appease Ruggie, Leona says he just needs to send their clothes in for dry cleaning, and lets Ruggie toss his clothing into the mix, this works in Ruggie’s favour as it means he can save on the laundry expenses. In the second part, when Ruggie returns with Leona’s clean clothes, Leona tells him to give him the ceremonial robes to put on. He explains that his family wanted a photo of him in them. Although this surprises Ruggie, he determines that since Leona never contacts his family, they naturally wonder how he’s doing – unlike Leona, Ruggie at least sends his grandmother a photo as an update on occasion. Leona isn’t just family, he’s the second prince of royalty, so asking for updates seems natural. Regardless, it annoys Leona. And after Ruggie notes it’s rare of Leona to heed his family’s requests, Leona points out his sister-in-law made the request. We find out here that women of the Sunset Savanna are known for their strength. Leona isn’t ‘nice’ or obliging to them just because they’re women – he’s well aware they’re strong and fierce, and pissing them off leads to more trouble than Leona’s willing to deal with. Ruggie shares the sentiment and agrees to take Leona’s photo. Ruggie immediately starts cracking up seeing that Leona has the wrong robe, and tries his best to insist nothing’s wrong, which Leona obviously doesn’t buy. Leona notices the area for his ears feels off, and goes to check a mirror. It’s

another small insight on Ruggie’s relationship with Leona – for all the work he does for Leona, it’s in his benefit, and he’s not afraid to be a little shit to Leona either, because he’s enjoying this too much and doesn’t want Leona to catch on too fast. Leona and Ruggie recognise the holes are a custom tailor of the robe, and Leona quickly concludes he got Malleus’ robe on accident. This pisses Leona off, and he accuses Ruggie of not being diligent enough to recognise the mistake, despite Ruggie pointing out the receipt had Leona’s name on it. Leona insists Ruggie holds responsibility for not noticing the mix up, and orders Ruggie to retrieve Leona’s proper robes from Malleus. Naturally, Ruggie isn’t keen on confronting the Malleus Draconia, even over something as banal as laundry, pointing out he can’t tell what Malleus is thinking or what’ll set someone like him off. Leona ridicules Ruggie’s fears, saying they’re unbecoming of a Savanaclaw student. Ruggie responds saying it’s easy for Leona, a fellow dorm leader (not to mention prince) to confront Malleus. He insists Leona tag along with him, using Leona’s words against him: it’s not a good look for a student of Savanaclaw to show fear in front of another dorm, so Leona should do the talking himself and avoid the embarrassment. This manages to convince Leona, but he knows it’s both because he can’t have Savanaclaw embarrassing itself like that, and because Ruggie’s a slick-talker who knows that just as well as Leona does.

When the two arrive at Diasomnia, Silver greets them. Once more, he mistakes Leona as Malleus’ friend, irritating Leona again. No matter how much Leona tries to correct Silver, the latter gets carried away and excited Malleus has made a ‘new friend’. Unable to get through to Silver, an irritated Leona claims he’d rather deal with Malleus, since he could at least get through to Malleus. To get Leona irritated enough to say that about Malleus of all people, Ruggie comments that Silver’s ‘easy-going vibe’ is terribly impressive.

This card gives us important insight to Leona and Ruggie’s relationship. Frankly, it’d be generous to call them ‘friends’, but they’re far from acquaintances. Leona’s too guarded to truly view anyone as a friend in the pure sense, and while Ruggie may have friends he gets along with, he prioritises his future and the well-being of his family more. Ruggie’s the closets to a confidant Leona has, by virtue of them sharing and understanding their shrewd, dog eats dog philosophy. But even then, Leona ‘won’t divulge everything to Ruggie, only what’s necessary. He knows that if Ruggie can risk it, he’ll take advantage of Leona’s vulnerabilities, and the last thing he needs is Ruggie knowing what’s beneath all of that bravado and fearsome temper. In return, Ruggie may dig at Leona to get under his skin for his own amusement, but he seldom pushes the boundaries since it wouldn’t benefit him.

Ruggie will do the grunt work for Leona, complaining the whole time about Leona dumps even the simplest of tasks on him, but goes through it because he benefits from Leona’s seemingly careless nature, especially when it comes to money. Even if there is some hint of kindness in the act due to knowing Ruggie’s impoverished background, Leona gives Ruggie hand-me-downs, pays the expenses for things like laundry or shopping, et cetera, more out of respect for that symbiotic relationship the two of them share.

Neither Leona nor Ruggie are stupid, helpless beings – they know their strengths and weaknesses very well. So despite Ruggie’s annoyance with Leona’s lethargy, or Leona irritated by Ruggie’s rightful criticisms, neither cut the other off because they prove invaluable to the other. Because in the end, despite those flaws, they know they can understand each other as shrewd, self-focused individuals, and respect that about each other. After all, we seem them banter and how they keep each other amused and on their toes through calling each other out on their bullshit without interfering with said bullshit.

To a point, Ruggie can see through Leona, even if there are still things Leona won’t let on, Ruggie’s at least able to discern the basic idea behind Leona’s thoughts and actions. While he often gives Leona a hard time, he’s not one to involve himself in the mess of going out of his way to lecture Leona. He just wants to fuck with the guy, because he understands they’re cut from similar cloths, going after they want through underhanded means and valuing intelligence over brute-forcing their way through the frontlines. Still, he isn’t a mind-reader, Leona doesn’t want that, and we see more of that after Leona’s Overblot, where there are truths behind Leona’s jaded personality that not even Ruggie could see, because on the surface Leona doesn’t let that side of him known. But we’re not at that point just yet, we’re just getting a glimpse of their relationship. At this point, we understand Ruggie acts as Leona’s right-hand and does his grunt work, but the benefits of Leona accommodating the financial burdens Ruggie faces because of those chores outweigh the frustrations of having to deal with a grown man leaving menial tasks to a teenager.

Ruggie knows damn well he could bounce whenever he pleases. And at this point we understand that Leona would be pissy about it, but it’s not something he’s going to make Ruggie’s life more difficult for. When you get down to it, Ruggie’s much weaker than Leona, that’s why he appeals to him in the first place – he wants to be on the good side of the strong, and Leona’s an easy target. But Leona gains nothing from giving Ruggie shit if he decided to stop babysitting him. He’ll certainly be an ass about it, and as Leona is, he’d quickly redirect blame onto Ruggie exclusively, but ultimately, there’s no real reason for him to hold a grudge. Granted this point, this is before his reaction to Ruggie’s criticism against him during Ep2. While Leona knows Ruggie could bounce if he really wanted to, he doesn’t prepare himself for it since he knows the pros outweigh the cons – a vital concept to them both.

More about them later, considering how important their relationship with one another is pivotal to Ep2’s events.

Another thing we learn is that Leona’s family tries to keep in contact with him and see how he’s doing. They want to know about his school life, what he’s doing, all normal things to ask about from family to a relative off on their own. And considering Leona’s mental state, you can’t blame them. Farena, his sister-in-law, and Cheka all clearly hold value in Leona as a person. But Leona keeps rejecting this and imposes his own assumptions upon them. Their concern is them ‘following him around’ and pestering him over meaningless things.

This ties back into Leona’s refusal to open up to others, and staying on the defence against criticism. He probably reads it as receiving backhanded compliments, and while we don’t know the ins and outs of his relationship with Farena, we at least at this point he won’t go against his sister-in-law.

It isn’t just because she’s a woman – it’s because she’s a fierce person, and it’s established women in the Sunset Savanna do not take kindly to disrespect. Considering how Leona likes to talk down to others, he has to play it safe with his sister-in-law. He knows he has to show her respect not just because she’s a woman, but because she and many other women in their culture expect due respect and aren’t afraid to retaliate if crossed. So in this case, it all comes down to Leona feeling exasperated by the obligations he’s held to over something he’d rather not do.

That said, asking for a photograph isn’t all that troublesome in the grand scheme of things. Leona just despises being ordered around or told what to do, especially by the family that he feels mostly rejects him or only keeps tabs on him because they ‘don’t trust him’. To Leona, it feels like last-ditch efforts to make amends with him after years of being treated as ‘second fiddle’ compared to Farena (again, we only see Leona’s perspective here, we have to keep in mind his personality doesn’t exactly make him the easiest to get along with, especially as he gets older). More on that later naturally.

As far as Malleus goes, the card makes it clear Leona cannot stand even the mere mention of Malleus, as Malleus now acts as a scapegoat for Leona’s frustration against Farena (“Never, ever mention that name in my presence,” and all that jazz). Malleus has more fame, more power, and stands as the Briar Valley’s heir, and Savanaclaw’s forced to live in Diasomnia’s shadow during Magift tournaments. Mind you, this is all despite the fact people deeply fear the enigmatic Fae, and in some cases that seems to only add to his appeal. Whereas, in Leona’s case, the fear he inspires in others is just that – fear and antagonism. Even in terms of intimidation, he appears to get the short end of the stick and can only use it to his advantage after careful consideration of his next move. Malleus doesn’t have to.

Just like Farena, Malleus doesn’t appear to need to so much as break a sweat for acknowledgement. Meanwhile Leona’s been told he could go far with his skill and power, but every time someone tells him this, they’re quick to remind him he holds himself by not applying himself more often – he’s reminded of the blame he shares, and the glow of that ‘acknowledgement’ dies out. Night Raven College, whether Leona admits it or not, clearly acts as an ‘escape’ from feeling like he lost his place in the Sunset Savanna. He felt he could never live up to Farena, older than him by ten years, and never catch up to the importance he held as a first-born prince. And growing up with that knowledge moulds a person with a jaded perspective and bitter, distant personality that unnerves the court’s servants.

But it’s their rejection that makes Leona spiral downwards even further, and puts he has it in his head this wouldn’t happen if he wasn’t ‘just the second-born’, and that his personality would be admired as something befitting of the first heir to a kingdom, as opposed to the ‘laid-back’ personality of the brother he so resents. It’s a vicious cycle that follows Leona throughout his life, which makes his family’s attempts to reach out to him all the mores frustrating and, to Leona, hurtful – it isn’t something he anticipates/understands, so he rejects it because it doesn’t fit the narrative he’s had in his head since growing up, and facing that is a pain he doesn’t want to confront.

NRC’s meant to be an escape from his family. He remains there and dislikes their attempts at contacting him, and revels in his role as Savanaclaw’s dorm leader, where his authority goes undisputed (or in the rare cases people challenge him, he’s always up for some Fun Competition and putting them in their place to further establish his dominance over the dorm). At home, he loses that sense of self-importance, and retreats further into his jaded habits by lashing out at his brother whenever Farena tries to reason with him. He can avoid that at NRC, but between them still trying to stay in contact with him (and challenging his beliefs that they don’t care for him as much as Farena or Cheka), and Malleus overshadowing him, Leona’s spiral continues to fester.

Lab Coat SR Card – “Keep Struggling”

Brief Summary: This card provides two new about Leona, alongside reestablishing major details about what would motivate someone so arrogant to assist others traits about Leona: his authority as the Magift team’s captain, his dislikes children because of their impulsive, persistent behaviour, and shows his more competent side, and how he’s motivated by self-serving actions even when helping others.

Leona’s dislike for children, clearly, stems from Cheka’s involvement in his life. As a child, Cheka has no solid boundaries yet, so he asks others to play or spend time with him without understanding that they’re either not interested or busy. And in Cheka’s mind, Leona is family, so he’s someone Cheka wants to be around, add on Leona’s ‘mysterious’ and aloof personality, and that makes this kid even more curious and endeared by Leona. He doesn’t fully understand Leona’s character, and only sees him as a family member he cares for and wants to be around. Leona dislikes this lack of distinction and restraint children embody, and has zero patience for it. Give them an inch and they’ll go a mile, and Leona only wants to relent to others’ whims when he knows it’ll wrap something up quickly, not prolong the inconvenience.

Now, alongside Cheka’s persistence, if Leona refuses, there’s always the risk of having to answer to Farena or his sister-in-law for not doing the bare minimum for Cheka – you can’t blame them, as a child, Cheka’s done nothing wrong to Leona. What we and Leona wants to believe is him disliking Cheka because he’s another obstacle to the already unobtainable succession ot the throne, likely stems for from the fact that Cheka’s admiration for Leona contradicts the distance Leona wants from his family, but he can’t rationalise it like he can his brother’s.

While his brother’s attempt to involve himself in Leona’s life can be watered down to ‘wanting to pester and lecture’ Leona (which he does and should, out of concern for Leona), Cheka’s too young to have any ulterior motives. He’s just here for a good time. Leona knows this and can’t dismiss it as something truly negative, and he doesn’t know, ultimately, how to handle it properly. And so, children get on Leona’s nerves. They’re persistent, impulsive, and leap before they leap. Leona dislikes this in anyone, but it’s practically inherent to children. There’s no way for him, someone with little patience, to deal with. Pair that up with Cheka, and it’s that combined with the fact that Leona knows how bright Cheka’s future inherently is, and everything about the boy irritates him.

Tangent: this stems more as a headcanon, but I think it’s safe to say there’s also the risk that the servants distrust and wariness of Leona could extend to how he interacts with Cheka, so even if he did feel like entertaining Cheka’s energy, he’d have others side-eyeing him out of concern for Cheka’s safety. Frankly I think a Sunset Savanna event that touches upon this as a source of conflict could be really interesting and showcase a different side to Leona’s struggles with his family and the royal court.

Back to Leona not wanting to have to deal with Cheka’s parents if he constantly refuses Cheka’s whims – Leona feels this sentiment echo when he hears about Rook helping Epel make the potion. After the group bumps into Leona and spills the potion, Leona’s been pulled in, and if Epel explains what happened to the potion, it’ll give Rook, of all people, an excuse to annoy Leona (not that he’s ever needed an excuse before). Not a single person in this fandom needs me to overanalyse why Leona dislikes Rook so I’m going to spare all of us that.

However, this gives us another look at Leona’s more admirable qualities. When he’s really motivated, he gets shit done, and has the knowledge to get shit done right. He even points out that the voice-changing potion is pretty advanced for first years to do, and seems to have a natural knack for magic, seeing as all the vague conditions Rook gave Epel made no difference to Leona in making the potion.

Leona’s lack of motivation and skipping classes held him back, yes, but the fact remains he still retains this information, alongside his formal education as royalty. We see why people get so frustrated with Leona. Apart from his arrogance and condescending attitude, if he applied himself, he could go far. But he doesn’t.

Leona’s a man that likes a challenge, and NRC just isn’t giving him that anymore, so he doesn’t see the merit in pushing himself in things he already knows he’s good at. He’d rather sleep the day way, dream off his problems, and avoid others’ scrutiny. Again, we fall back on how stuck in the past Leona is, so fixated on this mindset from how others spoke about him as a child behind his back, and the guidance from Farena he rejected, where Leona protects himself by staying in this mindset of not wanting to risk putting in effort only to be criticised for it.

This, of course, only continues the cycle of people criticising him nonetheless when he does put effort into something, which only ‘validates’ Leona’s presumptions and makes him dig his heels further into the ground. And the praise he receives doesn’t feel worth it, since to him it’s nothing challenging, especially in the context of helping a bunch of inexperienced kids make a potion he knows so well that he completes it without them even realising it.

Gym Uniform R Card – “With a Wag of My Tail”

Timeline: Before October Brief Breakdown: This card focuses on Leona’s relationship with Lilia, more specifically, it acts to establish Lilia’s inherent understanding of Leona’s major flaws, and the fact that Leona is holding himself back. During a joint gym class between Class 3-E and 3-A, Rook attempts to get everyone motivated for a game of football. However, given his personality, Leona rejects being ‘told what to do’ by someone he dislikes, especially when he isn’t interested in playing football, unsatisfied with just running around after a ball like a dog. Lilia tries to lighten up the mood, but the bright light weakens his constitution. Seeing this, Leona immediately ridicules Lilia for thinking he could even play against Leona in his current condition. Leona states he can’t enjoy himself playing against ‘some runt’. Lilia doesn’t take kindly to being looked down upon, and does so in turn to Leona. The challenge riles Leona up, and the rest of the story essentially becomes a dick-measuring contest between the two playing one-on-one football, exhibiting their unique skills and strengths, and the card story ends with them still going at it.

While Leona’s lethargy remains a key defining point of his flaws, this story provides insight on two things that, when in doubt, motivate Leona without fail: competition and talking down to others. When Lilia attempts to ‘talk big’ by urging Leona to enjoy himself, his constitution in the sun quickly makes him seem less likely to participate to the best of his ability. Leona, a lion, a hunter, never hesitates to zero in on others’ weaknesses, and, again, to fuel his ego and ‘prove’ how pointless it’d be for Leona to participate in football, he mocks Lilia’s apparent weakness and questions how he’d be able to hold himself against someone as athletic as Leona. He doesn’t want to play, so he’s trying to the turn the tables on Lilia by discouraging him and elaborating why he doesn’t want to play.

Obviously, he can’t enjoy himself playing against someone barely able to stand straight because of the sun, so clearly there’s no real obligation for Leona to join in. Tack this onto Leona underestimating Lilia because of his deceiving looks, and Leona doesn’t perceive Lilia as a threat, competition, or someone to waste his energy on. When you get down to it, Leona doesn’t like throwing his weight around for ‘easy’ victories.

However, while Leona’s shrewdness indeed makes him a force to reckon with, Lilia gives his first cold reminder to Leona: he’s inexperienced, and when he talks shit, he should be prepared to get hit. To Lilia, Leona’s bravado is literally just a kitten hissing and flexing his claws at anything presenting an unwanted challenge. He knows Leona isn’t actually afraid of losing, in fact he’s aware Leona’s overconfident in his capabilities – when he’s accusing Leona of being afraid to lose, he’s putting Leona on the spot.

Again, Leona does this to himself often, not realising his ego forces him to react a certain way just to protect it and not make a fool of himself after talking big. If he backed down now, it’s almost like admitting Lilia’s right. With his ego on the line, it’s more personal than any high school football game warrants – Leona wants to prove Lilia wrong and show off his capabilities, so it’s become 1v1 for Leona to do just that.

The rest of the card really is just a dick-measuring contest of Leona and Lilia’s respective athletic skills. They have their own tricks and styles to catch each other off guard or gain the upper hand. Leona focuses more on force and defence, whereas Lilia more in agility and goes the offensive. It’s good to note that Leona’s utilising his strength more for defence and not bulldozing his way against Lilia. He at least recognises Lilia’s off-colour personality means he’s less conventional than most, so it’s important to be on alert against him, which proves in his favour in preventing Lilia from making goals.

The clash ends persists, and the card story ends with it ongoing. Of course, considering how Lilia is against Malleus during Beans Day, it’s safe to say it’s not like he’s putting his all into this football game against Leona’s cocky ass.

All in all, this card serves to showcase Leona’s arrogance and pride, when challenged, overcomes his preference to avoid exerting unnecessary energy. If it’s something he’s obligated to do, Leona wants no part of it. He’s heard enough about obligations and expectations from home. If it’s something he’s challenged to do, and more specifically having his pride challenged, Leona will rise up to the occasion in order to ‘prove’ his bite is worse than his roar, especially for the sake of feeding his ego. Leona’s said himself he enjoys competition, and that’s no surprise to anyone. Be if through talking down to others or being able to show off, Leona will always chase the high of coming out on top after living in Farena’s shadow for so long.

Both instances reflect Scar’s ultimate dissatisfaction with ‘being king’. Despite being king, he’s still compared to Mufasa, objectively the superior leader between the two brothers, hence why, after obtaining his true goal through nefarious means, Scar neglects the Pridelands and only revels in the shadow of a role he cannot truly fulfill. This reflects how, as he is now, Leona could never live up to the expectations of a true king. And Leona knows that all too well, hence his cycle of lacking motivation versus an insatiable, unshakeable need to prove his worth.

Dorm Uniform SSR – “Let Me in on This”

Timeline: Before the Interdorm Magift Tournament Breakdown Part 1 With his usual off-hands approach, Leona has Savanaclaw training for the upcoming Interdorm Magift Tournament, giving half-hearted praise and telling them to continue working hard whilst he ‘watches’ (inevitably planning to nap). However, a confrontation between Jack and second-year student disrupts his rest. Jack tries confronting the student for using magic in a prohibited manner during the sport. The student threatens to rough him up, to which Jack makes things worse by further riling them up. Leona intervenes before a fight can break out, complaining that they’re being too loud. The second year blames Jack, and Leona recognises Jack, who’s already made a name for himself with his physical strength outdoing that of older students confident in their abilities, which makes them angry and jealous.

Jack reasons that he fights ‘fair and square’, unlike much of Savanaclaw’s older students that resort to cheap tricks and rougher playstyles that are just barely within the rules. Leona doesn’t see anything wrong with this, instead endorsing the students ‘using their head’ to gain the upper hand. This surprises Jack, and Leona further explains that toeing the lines of the rules, not violating them but certainly pushing the limits, is a fine strategy in coming out on top. Leona goes on to say that since they’re not actually breaking the rules, they’re not doing anything wrong. However, he goes on to say that Jack’s insistence on rocking the boat and creating tension within the pack (the team), leading the hot-blooded dorm into fights, is the problem. Jack is unable to give a decent response, and Leona tells him to sit it out and reflect on his words. Instead, Jack returns to practise – this doesn’t bother Leona, and instead he condescendingly calls Jack a ‘cheeky pup.

The second-years from earlier are pissed off that a first-year has the audacity to tell them off, and express that one day they should teach him a lesson by roughing him up. Leona tells them to cut the bullshit, and focus their energy on Magift training unless they want to lose like last year and face Leona afterwards knowing they’d ‘rather waste their time on a first-year’ instead of training. He goes on to claim he believes Jack would’ve handed their asses to them, and calls them pathetic, says their display was embarrassing to even see. The students try to object Leona’s claims, but Leona tells them to not make excuses and return to training. Reluctantly, the students obey, but speak amongst themselves about not accepting Leona’s take on the situation. Meanwhile, Leona sighs in exasperation.

This SSR offers us the deepest look into Leona’s value on strategy, even if those ‘strategies’ require toeing the lines of rules. Leona makes it clear he’s fine with the team pushing the boundaries so long as they don’t actually break the rules – whatever it takes to win, if they’re smart enough to pull it off, Leona’s fine with their rough tactics and dirty tricks.

By now, Savanaclaw’s older students have a certain synergy with one another, and understand their leader’s expectations when it comes to competition, especially the IMT. Their sportsmanship may not be the best, but that isn’t important. What’s important to Leona is that they have a clear understanding of the rules, and more importantly, how to push those boundaries without jeopardising the game. That synergy becomes vital to their playstyle, so Jack’s interference and constant arguing with others disrupts that synergy, which Leona doesn’t appreciate, let alone relate to. Leona knows what’s always worked for Savanaclaw, and with their feud against Diasomnia at play now, Leona isn’t about to let his team play ‘fair and square’ against a powerhouse like Malleus.

Breakdown Part 2 The next day, we find Ruggie looking for Leona in the Botanical Garden, where Leona, instead of his usual napping, reveals he’s playing one-man chess, as he’s in the middle of something, he tells Ruggie not to disturb him. Ruggie questions Leona’s hobby, but Leona points out how he kills time is up to him, sarcastically inviting Ruggie to play a game of chess against him. Ruggie refuses, the both of them knowing it’s not something Ruggie can win, especially against Leona. Ruggie tries telling Leona to return to class, lest Trein gets angry, but Leona argues that taking the tests should be enough, obviously not a fan of Trein (or any teacher, really) trying to pester him over his attendance. Ruggie tells Leona to complain to Trein himself and not make it Ruggie’s problem, and he tries to mention something about Vargas, but Leona disrupts him, telling him to be quiet.

He overhears the second years from yesterday complaining about Jack outdoing them during Magift training again, contemplating the possibility of him, a first year, taking a regular student’s spot on the dorm’s team. Ruggie notes how it’s rather shameful of second years to be jealous of a first year’s outstanding performance, but adds that Jack doesn’t ‘carry himself well’, insisting on concepts like ‘right and wrong’ in a dorm like Savanaclaw, which we know believes in a strict ‘survival of the fittest’ philosophy. He thinks Jack should be shrewder, to which Leona agrees, relating how shrewd Ruggie himself is, and how Leona wouldn’t have to worry about dealing with Jack’s outbursts.

The second years recall Leona ordering them not to pull anything, but they claim they can’t take Jack’s self-righteousness anymore, let alone the fact he’s outdoing a fair number of his seniors. They know many other older students have something against Jack, and plan to rough him up in a group using magic as well.

Leona’s annoyed by how they’re just idiots who can’t follow simple instructions, and he even criticises the fact they’re discussing their plan in plain sight, calling it ‘poor end game’, again showing us Leona prefers to think before he acts instead of recklessly retaliate. Ruggie asks Leona what he plans on doing about the ordeal, noting it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to let Jack get a taste of how rough Savanaclaw can truly be.

The scene changes to the older students all harassing and surrounding Jack, telling him to drop out of the dorm’s Magift team, and one student even threatens he’d be hospitalised by not complying. Jack, predictably, refuses to back down, calling the group cowards for using numbers against him. We get more tidbits of how Savanaclaw, for all their roughness, can make an effective plan of attack – such as outnumbering and otherwise fearsome student like Jack to overwhelm him. Jack tries to fight back, but the students point out that only muscles won’t get him anywhere, and they resort to using magic against him. Despite Jack’s best efforts, the mob quickly overpower him and taunt him.

At the height of the fight, Leona suddenly interrupts, much to both Jack and the seniors’ shock. With a smug look on his face, Leona comments that it looks like they’re all having fun, telling them to let him in on the fight.

As far as cards go, this is our first look at a pass time of Leona’s that isn’t Magift or sleeping – chess. One-man chess, specifically. It’s another testament to Leona’s strategic mind, and his preference for situations that make him use his head. It’s important to note that this mindset sometimes leads Leona to overestimate himself and underestimate others – his strategies and tactics aren’t infallible, and depending on the person, he may see no value in spinning the wheels in his head to deal with them. More often than not, this gets him in hot water.

The strategist reference aside, this also shows how alienated Leona became from his family. Chess isn’t an easy game to learn and play against an opponent, let alone the difficulties of one-man chess. It’s a hint to the self-isolation he put himself through, and how if others were to reject him he’d just amuse himself. And this isolation follows him to school, alongside his unmotivated approach to academics (specifically, academics that don’t challenge him) and avoidance of putting in effort without a meaningful outcome. He sleeps the days away and only seems to attend class for tests, AKA the immediate results of accumulated lessons – an immediate summary of how much Leona already knows without wasting his time on extra schoolwork.

Just to put into perspective how truly uninvested Leona is in NRC’s academics, in the Magical Archives book, he’s barely above Idia in the motivation charts for History and Flying, and at the bottom of the Alchemy charts, ironically where the second least invested is Malleus.

This card also shows another example of how Leona truly does appreciate Ruggie’s shrewdness. It’s something they both relate to and use to their advantage. Ruggie makes the perfect right-hand to Leona, not only because he’s skilled in domestic activities Leona can’t be arsed to deal with, but because they understand each other’s motivations. If they willingly involve themselves in something, it’s because they gain something from it. That’s the basis of their relationship, and keeps them on their toes when talking to one another. It’s Leona acknowledging that, whether he likes it or not, Ruggie can see through him in most instances, but doesn’t persecute him over majority of Leona’s actions. Leona despises people who meddle in his life, and while Ruggie’s the type to give Leona grief, he seldom interferes with him, only when absolutely necessary.

Dealing with someone whom he knows is expecting something out of him makes Ruggie, to a point, predictable and easy for Leona to deal with. Ruggie’s conditions may irritate him, but at the end of the day, it’s easy for him to understand and relate to because Leona’s very similar in that sense. As for Jack, that ‘fair and square’ philosophy means little to Leona. Leona’s someone who, in the past, did put his all into things to gain some acknowledgement, but others dismissed that effort because of Leona’s shitty attitude and terrifying Unique Magic. What Jack believes in, Leona’s essentially failed in and as such rejected.

Mix that with the fact that Jack’s impulsive behaviour is the complete opposite of someone as sneaky and devious as Ruggie, and you have a headache Leona has no patience for. Ruggie may pull some Bullshit from time to time, but it’s rarely something that erupts into a whole ordeal Leona has to clean up, and Leona can’t stand people who try bulldozing their way through something without giving some thought to the pros and cons of a proper plan. So, even if he never explicitly admits it and probably never well, Leona makes it clear he prefers Ruggie’s shrewdness over Jack’s impulsiveness on the grounds of it getting somewhere with less fuss and peaching.

Now, not overanalyse this particular line of Ruggie’s, but if put in different context, it adds just how well he understands the kind of person Leona is.

“Leaving it like this and letting Jack learn how scary the dorm can be isn’t exactly a bad plan,” while it sounds like Ruggie debates leaving things as is and not interfering, it’s possible to read it as Ruggie knowing that Leona already won’t allow this whole mess to go down without interfering. He knows how Leona is, and what’ll happen if Leona involves himself – he’s going to do something that puts students not listening to him in their place, and at the same time still show Jack exactly how fierce Savanaclaw’s dorm leader can be. After all, as the ‘face’ of the dorm, Leona’s ferocity is the same as showing how scary the dorm can be.

Breakdown Part 3

We know that Leona dislikes roughing up people weaker than him, he gains nothing from it. Leona's an ass and he can be cold, but at a point we can determine he has his limits, and a mob of people ganging up on someone else certainly meets those limits. However, with that in mind, he's remains a self-serving individual through and through. He recognises that if he intervenes on Jack's behalf, using his own magic, he forces rebellious dorm students into submission and puts a strong, promising first year in his debt. He's able to interfere without playing the hero, but says the right things to disicipline the dorm and put them in their place.

He'd ridiculing them, knowing that they’re already fired up, and completely prepared to use magic against them despite a previous statement about fights with magic being something he can’t overlook. He uses that same mob as an excuse to display his Unique Magic and intimidate the students into submission.

This display of strength, something Jack respects, alongside seemingly respecting school conduct, works in keeping Jack’s favour as well. He uses magic despite it being against school conduct, but justifies it by calling it ‘self-defence’ and in Savanaclaw’s favour of suppressing further violence – which isn’t wrong, given the situation. As the dorm leader of Savanaclaw, founded on the King of Beast’s tenacity, Leona weighs his pros and cons, and understands that so long as the end justifies the means, perfectly personifying the King of Beast’s tenacity. In Savanaclaw, all’s fair in love and war, and so long as you can get away with it, methods be damned, success is success.

Leona in Episode 2

I will spare you an entire section of this post summarising Episode 2’s events, but on the off-chance you really want one, I have a separate document that acts as a basic outline of the story. The main thing to take from it, initially of course, is that Crowley’s announcing Malleus’ induction into the Hall of Fame before the tournament even comes to its conclusion, under the assumption Diasomnia would win by default with Malleus at the lead. Ever since Malleus enrolled in NRC, Savanaclaw lost its spot as No. 1 in the Interdorm Tournament the past two years of Leona’s leadership. as the turning point for Leona’s mental state for the rest of the episode.

Earlier, in 2-2, when Ruggie complains about Leona always wanting the most popular and difficult to get food for lunch, Leona says, “The more difficult it is to get, the more you wanna eat it,” further solidifying his penchant for competition.

With his backstory in mind, Leona’s grown up always wanting to one-up his elder brother, and prove the royal court’s servants wrong about what he could achieve, despite his second-born status seemingly ‘barring’ him from what he wants. He’s grown up under the influence yearning to defy that, and even though he’s now resigned himself to his second-born status (“Your effort or skills make no difference, everything is decided by what order you’re born in,” [2-2]), that competitive drive fuels his hunger for… not so much ‘success’, per say, but coming out on top against the odds. If he can outsmart the limitations presented to him, he’s more satisfied with himself. His birth order shouldn’t matter in something like the IMT, so there’s nothing standing in his way from using wit and strategy to beat the odds.

But with Crowley assuming that, by default, Diasomnia will win the IMT, he’s stripping Leona away of the chance to try and beat the odds. For all of Savanaclaw’s skill in sports and especially Magift, more so under Leona’s leadership, it all seems for naught since Malleus’ enrollment. As Malleus acts a scapegoat for Leona’s frustrations against Farena and his birth status, Leona once again faces the notion ‘you can never outdo this person’.

For placing Malleus in the HoF, he needs the other dorm leaders’ consent, and of course Leona’s the first to speak against it in 2-6.

Leona: The thing I hate most in the world is being told, “You will never be number one.” Leona: First, in Magift, it’s not about throwing around physical strength, it’s about using your head. Sure, no one is ever going to beat him in a battle of brawn, but brains should be different. Leona: The King of Beasts took his place as king through hard-work and wisdom.

We see here Leona puts a lot of stock in the King of Beasts’ legend, and pushes that sentiment into the context of the dorms trying to outsmart Malleus in the IMT and defeat him through a solid game plan since everyone already expects him to win via his brute strength. We see how Leona’s eloquence works to his advantage and sways the other dorm leaders to his side. No one expects the other dorms to defeat Diasomnia through strength, so imagine the fanfare of someone overcoming them through strategy.

But 2-6 shows us Leona already anticipates this isn’t enough to avoid losing, and his ‘solution’ involves sabotage. We’re shown Ruggie using “Laugh With Me” to sabotage Heartslabyul students, and the first blot animation for Ep2.

By 2-13, we see just how far Leona intends on playing up his reputation as Savanaclaw’s command tower, telling students that getting into a fight with others might interfere with their performance in the IMT. Of course, he doesn’t stop them from messing with Yuu and co. in the form of a Magift match, where they can ‘justify’ using magic to teach them a lesson for ‘trespassing’. Again, showing how Leona’s not afraid to push boundaries. And he’s clearly enjoying himself despite it being too rough for newbies like Adeuce and Yuu. He’s an ass that likes to show off and this a perfect way to blow off steam. It isn’t until Jack interrupts and criticises the group that Leona loses steam.

2-14 shows Leona and Ruggie briefly discussing Ruggie’s ‘jobs’ (the sabotage), and cements their relationship of Ruggie using Leona to improve his own position, just like the King of Beasts and hyenas in the legends.

We learn the other side of Leona's motivation. During the broadcastings for the previous two IMTs, Savanaclaw's past two crushing losses against Diasomnia. Consequently, their leader was branded as incompetent and the scoutings Savanaclaw looked forward to dwindled up. While Leona agrees when Jack claims it’s because they weren’t good enough, he rationalises that not having an advanced plan for a ‘monster-like’ opponent like Malleus was foolish, and that they could never beat him in an honest game. They resigned themselves to defeat without even trying to think of a new game plan. For the dorm known for its tenacity, this resignation and loss seems unheard of, driving in the idea that their ‘leader is incompetent’.

Leona only gives us his reasonings to sabotage Malleus on the basis of ‘doing it for Savanaclaw’ (which, from what we know of his previous cards, we know Leona always hides ulterior, self-serving motives), and wants to restore Savanaclaw’s former pride, alongside the fact certain students need those scoutings for their future plans.

With the circumstances of Malleus possibly being inducted to the HoF, this is their final shot at beating Diasomina, and Leona’s only concerned with ‘the end justifies the means’ at this point, so methods like sabotage and playing roughly seem necessary against a foe like Diasomina. Leona uses this concept to get Jack to back off, holding the students’ futures over his head and questioning if he wants to jeopardise that because of his own sense of justice.

To Leona, this victory is the same as chasing after and capturing prey, which requires using one’s head (think of how many group-type predators have specific formations and roles in catching prey). It’s survival of the fittest, one of, it not the strongest, beliefs within Savanaclaw’s dorm.

And then Jack hits a nerve. He tells Leona he could his all and worked hard instead of resorting to trickery. But Leona's long since resigned himself to thinking otherwise. "Give it my all? Utterly foolish. Even if I did, nothing would change,". Here, he's speaking of the IMT against Diasomnia. But we know from his past the belief goes deeper than that. How despite his own attempts at gaining recognition, he's put it in his head his status as second-prince predestines him for less. Jack leaves, and we learn he not only hit a raw nerve, but did so sounding like Farena, Leona’s brother. It’s the same speech from the very person Leona tries and fails to overcome – an empty sentiment Leona holds no weight in. We get his second blot animation, which further shows the importance of mental and emotional well-being in relation to blot. Even without using his magic, Leona’s mental state still threatens his blot levels.

Episode 6 Spoiler Warning: this makes Idia’s assessment of Leona’s use of magic in Episode 6 important in understanding Leona as well. Leona’s careful with his magic, not out of worry of misusing it, but using it in the most effective way possible, he’s not a man who wastes magic energy on unnecessary effort, and furthermore, keeps a sound, composed mind even under the pressures and stress of the whole, you know, kidnapped and experimented scenario going on. So, the fact Leona’s mental state here, in Episode 2, is enough to accumulate blot without excessive magic, plays as a testament to just how low he’s spiraling under the pressures of the IMT and trying to dominate Diasomnia.

2-21 shows us Leona's desperate enough for this victory that he made a contract with Azul, which everyone knows is a bad idea for anyone with their best interests in mind. He's pissed off at Ruggie for jeopardising the scheme after the lengths Leona's gone through.

Everyone in the dorm wants to see Malleus fail after his effortless victories against Savanaclaw, and many express an interest and hopes of the pro leagues scouting them after their assumed victory. There are students with their futures presumably on the line because of their previous defeats, which goes to show just how far they're willing to go to get out this slump and regain former glory. The students claim that after this win, they're sure Leona's popularity will skyrocket in the Sunset Savanna. Instead of looking forward to the idea, Leona dismisses them, saying "Theory and practise are two different things,", showing even now, he has his doubts and is clearly under stress of the underlying effects the competition has on him.

He tells everyone to leave him be. Once alone, he says "Being the top at school doesn't mean the whole world gets turned on its head,". Leona knows this won't change anything about his home life, which frustrates him. Here his third blot accumulation occurs. This is the second time that associating the situation with Savanaclaw’s recognition conflicts with Leona’s complex with home and family, and the mental distress it puts him under.

2-22 has a dream sequence, notably, the sequence of Zazu and later the hyenas criticising Scar’s kingship, and most notably, comparing him to Mufasa, which never fails to set Scar off. Just the same, we’ve seen instances of Leona remembering family life, and his relationship with Farena, and how just the singlemost instance of it coming up sours his mood. Yuu’s thoughts also contribute to the issues – if Leona doesn’t want others to compare him to Farena or criticise him in general, he should be giving it his all, and that, for Scar, becoming King didn’t solve his underlying issues. He obtained what he craved for so long but has proven unfit for the role and rejects others’ insight, too self-absorbed and devoid of something to chase after, his motivation gone and empty. This lion was never meant to rule, never had the personality for it, and despite other options being available to him within the pride, rejected them for the glory and admiration of ‘king’, which he’d never get. It was never him being second-born that made him unable to become king, or even the birth of his nephew – he could never be fit as a king because of his personality.

Also it’s petty and hard for me to ignore the whole “Ruggie should’ve overblotted instead” sentiment when this episode makes it clear that mental state largely contributes to blot as well. Yes, Ruggie’s used his magic a good deal this episode. But it’s been selective, careful use, later boosted by a potion in 2-23, and Ruggie makes it clear how into his role in this scheme he is. He does not give a single shit about ‘feeling bad’ or stressed out because he’s doing something shitty to others. Hyena’s living his best life so no he’s not overblotting y’all just didn’t pay attention to the overblot exposition at the start of the episode <3.

With ‘Malleus’ presumably out of the picture and injured, Leona takes the time to enjoy the plan’s success in Savanaclaw’s dorm, where he watched the broadcast of Ruggie’s successful stampede stunt.

Leona’s counting his chickens before they’re even laid, and his ‘victory’ goes short-lived, with Heartslabyul’s squad and Jack hearing the whole thing. Worse than that, Diasomnia’s trio reveal the dorm and most notably, Malleus, is just fine.

They’ve outsmarted Leona and the man knows he’s fucked. So what does he do? He plans on giving up, completely, much to Ruggie’s shock. He knows if Malleus remains in the game, there’s no point in trying to win. To Ruggie, even if they can’t beat Malleus, they could still at least make top three with Leona in the game, but if he drops out, all of their efforts and scheming go down the drain. He tries to reason with Leona, saying they could still achieve some hope of restoring Savanaclaw’s glory.

But then, finally, Leona drops the act. If there’s no guarantee in their victory, Leona doesn’t want to give it a shot, and doesn’t find the point in trying anymore. He doesn’t see the change that winning the IMT could actually do in the grand scheme of things – he’s the ‘loathed prince second prince’ and Ruggie’s a ‘worthless hyena from the slums’. A victory in something like Magift won’t change that, at least in Leona’s head.

The entirety of Savanaclaw put their all into this tournament, and beg Leona not to drop out. They know without him, they stand even less a chance of coming out on top. But for Leona, that doesn’t matter. He’s never come out on top before, and doesn’t expect that to change now – his scheme being thwarted plays into that belief.

Leona snaps and uses his UM, “Lion’s Roar’. A magic that turns everything to sand, from the second prince of a country in the savanna, where droughts can be disastrous. Even in the case of his magic, Leona faces rejection from his people. Frankly, the Episode’s weak writing really comes out at this point, as all we can conclude is that the frustration and blot accumulation has clouded Leona’s judgement so badly he’s doing something out of character for him – acting rashly without a plan in mind. But we know he wants everyone to leave him alone, and for the world to disappear.

Even after saving Ruggie from Lion’s Roar, the situation only gets worse. Riddle’s collar serves to temporarily stop Leona, but even now Leona clings to condescending others in a desperate attempt to retain his pride. Jack and Riddle keep preaching to them, but then Lilia gives him the verbal backhand of the century.

“"You appear to be lamenting how you'll never king due to natural skills and order of birth, but... You live slothfully if you aren't rewarded, if things don't go according to your expectations you become petty and find fault in your retainers. To become a king as you are... The thought of you becoming a competitor to our Lord Malleus makes me laugh. Even if you are able to defeat him, as long as you hold that rotten grudge in your heart… You will never become a true king!”

Lilia gives Leona the reality check he’s always known: his own defeatism and attitude only made things worse for him.

It’s a fact Leona’s tried to ignore and avoid this whole time, even though we see him slip into that train of thought during 2-21. That, on top of his experiences at home, leave him feeling without a place in life no matter what he does because of his reputation.

"I've been loathed since I was born, no place to belong and no future in sight. That will never change, even if I try.”

Overblots reveal the depths of the characters' inner feelings and turmoil. For Leona, it's that his situation feels hopeless and meaningless. "If I can't overturn the world, I'll turn it all into sand. All this meaningless... Everything!"

He wants to shut out the world that’s rejected him, for it to disappear.

In Leona's flashback, he reveals that he feels that as the second-born, everything he does gets nitpicked, whilst the first born brother, Farena, gets praised and coddled just because he's the first born. The servants talk behind his back because of his attitude and fearsome magic, whilst praising Farena as cheerful and bright.

To Leona, Farena has it easy - no one's going to shittalk the sucessor of the throne after all. But during his argument with Farena, it's made clear Farena does see something in Leona. He's intelligent, and he could do a great deal of good for the country despite not being king. But Leona rejects this because he knows how the rest of the court feels about him. He can't ever be 'number one', he can't be acknowledged for his efforts when he feels like he's under Farena's shadow. In away, Leona’s time in NRC acts as a ‘refuge’ from facing the rejection he anticipates at home – surprisingly similar to Simba refusing to return home where he’d have to face the notion pushed onto him by Scar – that he’s responsible for Mufasa’s death. It's not secret Overblot characters may embody the Villains of their respective dorms, but also share inklings of the heroines’ troubles as well, and Leona’s no different.

Of note, Leona’s plight with being second-born, from what we see of the flashback, appears self-imposed. The flashback gives terribly limited insight to Leona’s situation at home, and from what they say, the servants weariness of Leona’s restless attitude, combined with his temper and UM, are things of concern when put in their perspective. But from Leona’s perspective, he hears their praise of Farena, the first born, destined to become king, and tells himself that if he were first born, they’d instead praise his pragmatic nature and incredible magic ability.

Again, we don’t know how far or deep the rift between Leona and his family/servants goes, we’re not given that insight, just Leona overhearing a certain conversation that stays with him his whole life. The rejection Leona’s feels follows and haunts him, and with this self-imposed idea in his head, it makes Farena’s attempt and discussing his future and good points all the more bitter. Leona doesn’t want to hear this from someone he believes ‘has it easy’. It doesn’t fit the narrative Leona’s developed in his mind, which acts as a way to shield him from that rejection by placing the blame on his birth, rather than himself.

Although the full picture remains yet unseen, Lilia still offers that healthy dose of reality check for Leona. The fact he’s resigned himself only further burdens him and fogs up his future. The rejection from the royal court, and Farena’s lectures of his behaviour, and people like Vil always finding something ot nitpick about Leona all lock him into a poor state of mind.

Again, it’s why he can’t deal with Cheka – he’s not only a noisy child with no boundaries, but he’s giving something Leona feels he’s never had before, and that on top of again, forcing undo blame upon others, makes Leona reject him in an effort to forcibly keep that self-imposed belief on himself. Without that belief, he can’t justify his slothful, haughty behaviour, and has to face the time he’s spent soaking his feet in lukewarm water despite the opportunities presented to him. Again, he’s backed himself into a corner in the grand scheme of things, and uses NRC as a means to revel in some sort of acknowledgement. And even then, it’s not a true escape from others seeing through Leona and calling him out on his bullshit, and Leona has to defend himself by deflecting blame onto others – which he’s done his whole life to avoid the pain and anguish of being rejected by others for his very nature.

Leona's shocked he overblotted, and given his pride in his magical skill, it's enough to 'humble' him down to just calmly admit to his wrongdoings to Crowley and face the consequences. But, of course, he isn't going to immediately change like Riddle did. Especially when other dorms are demanding Savanaclaw remain in the tournament to get back at them for the bullshit they pulled. If anything, this seems to put things into a perspective Leona responds to as normally as any other day. He won't apologise, but he will allow them the chance to try and get revenge for all this nonsense he called. This abrupt 180 plays into Ep2's shoddy writing, but also shows what a piece of fucking work this man is. Give him a challenge and he'll take it.

And Ruggie just takes this vulnerability as an excuse to fuck with Leona, much to his chagrin, but for what it's worth, from this point on Leona just embraces what he's done. No excuses (or apology, again, gotta defend that pride of his). And frankly, NRC isn't a school of sentiment. They'd much rather this chance to beat the shit out of Savanaclaw in a match rather than them being disqualified and the other dorms unable to get back at them. Just look at Ace after Riddle apologises. What Ace wants isn’t an apology, it’s for Riddle to own up to and make up for his bullshit. Same thing here. The dorms aren’t interested in an apology. They want something tangible and immediate.

Hell, Leona accepts the Magift challenge with Adeuce and Grim despite him and Ruggie being in poor shape. He calls their demands a pain, but won’t turn down a challenge, and knows that this is better than having to grovel for forgiveness anyway. After the shit he’s pulled, pushing himself like this is still preferable over acting humbly. Accepting the challenge both appeases the group and lets Leona use it as a means of smoothing things over. Plus, he can’t turn down a challenge in the first place.

After the actual tournament, with the state everyone’s in, it ended up being a shit show in Diasomnia’s favour. Yuu notices Leona doesn’t seem to feel bad whatsoever, and questions him about it.

Leona asks what he has to feel bad about. To Leona, he has ‘nothing’ to feel bad about after giving it his all for the tournament, even if ‘his all’ were underhanded tactics, he doesn’t feel bad about them, let alone ever brings up the Overblot.

His bombast is short-lived when Cheka arrives and is just showering this grumpy uncle in affection, and despite his usual attitude and dislike of children, Leona doesn’t act like his usual self with Cheka. He humours with him and does his best to remain patient with the kid, even if he’s exhausted. Of course, Leona doesn’t want anyone seeing this side of him, but there’s no pushing Cheka away. It’s probably safe to say that for all his annoyance with Cheka, Leona knows better than to truly resent the kid simply for existing, so he plays the part of a grouchy uncle and doesn’t seem to say no to him once during the reunion.

Bruh Episode 2 (why do yall call the episodes CHAPTERS btw... it's explicilty... in English called Episode...) is a mess Especially the climax and resolution don't get me started... I did my best folks... all I can tell you is that Ruggie handles almost dying extremely well. But then again, really the only characters genuinely horrified by their actions are Riddle and Vil. Azul just knows he bit off more than he can chew. Jamil gives an advanced amount of no fucks. Leona not making a whole scene and inspirational speech about how he did wrong is perfectly in character, even if the writing did a poor job of even that. Leona makes it clear he has no intention of changing who he is. What pushed him over the edge was being told that, no matter what he accomplished, it wouldn’t matter in the end – pushing against that by ‘giving it his all’ acts a means of defiance, hence why his more underhanded methods will always be fair play in his mind.

From this point forward Leona goes at his own pace and never puts on airs. He doesn’t feel the need to ‘fix’ anything about himself – what he wants it to do his best (and by any means necessary at that) to achieve his goals. And in Ep3, we see this in full swing – how Leona’s not the person to expect him to do something out of the kindness of his heart. He’s self-serving, that won’t change any time soon – what’s different is that, gradually, Leona’s plans to get his way tend to work in something for the other party to gain, a method that generally leads to less friction and headaches for him.

Leona in Episode 3

In 3-13, Ruggie essentially guilt trips Leona into considering allowing Yuu and Grim to rest in Savanaclaw's dorm (specifically Leona's room), bringing up how much Ruggie pushed himself with the magic amplifier and, you know, Leona losing his goddamn mind and nearly killing him. These two aren't going to have a serious conversation out of it. Leona's too proud and Ruggie would rather use it as leverage against Leona for as long as he can. Ruggie knows it's a problem for Leona if he's in bad shape, and points out having Yuu and Grim 'take over' those chores would 'help him recover faster'. So not only does Ruggie use the fact Leona owes him big time, he's appealing to Leona's self-serving nature to force Leona to start bending. Bear in mind Leona agrees, but only on the condition that Yuu and Grim (mostly Grim, considering he’s the only one who can use magic) can beat some Savanaclaw students. And even then he’s pissy when they manage to do so, but for what it’s worth, Leona keeps his word instead of trying to sweet talk his way out of it.

In 3-14, we see one of Leona’s most drastic and pronounced changes – he’s practising alongside Savanclaw’s Magift training at the ungodly hour of 6 AM. It’s made clear in Leona’s Dorm SSR that students get annoyed that Leona just did fuck all and napped during practise 90% of the time, but Leona’s participating here ties back into his statement in Episode 2 about putting his all into upcoming competitions. He goes on to explain the NRC versus RSA tournament coming up, and the stakes behind this being their 100th year against RSA. We again see here how Leona’s pride wants to defeat RSA, and how that’s enough to motivate him to haul ass for practise as well.

During 3-16, Leona learns of Yuu’s deal with Azul, and we understand that Leona’s interest in learning more about the terms in conditions stems from the fact that this contract resulted in two people invading Leona’s private room for three days. The more he learns, the better idea he has of the situation. Towards the end, he makes an important statement:

"Then shouldn't you hurry up and get a move on? Time is money, they say."

And while Grim interprets this to mean they should haul ass to Atlantica’s Memorial Museum, Ruggie tells Leona he’s ‘mean’ right after the two leave, and Leona feigns ignorance. We learn in 3-19 that Leona knew they stood no chance of fulfilling their contract, what with Azul having the Tweels as his lackeys.

This becomes a loaded scene for both Leona and Ruggie’s characters, giving us clearer insight of how much they value ‘think before you leap’ as a saying. And combining that with ‘survival of the fittest’, it’s less about who’s the strongest and more about who can adapt better to the situation at hand. Until now, ‘survival of the fittest’ always seems to have a more brute strength feel to it, but for Leona and Ruggie, that isn’t the case. An impulsive fool won’t last long in the while, and there’s no way to gain the upper hand against someone if you lay out all your secrets and intents for the world to see.

Leona and Ruggie go on to elaborate on Azul’s UM and its conditions to Yuu and Grim, and Leona refuses to directly help them, instead telling them to use their heads and help themselves. We know Leona doesn’t do things he doesn’t benefit from, and he doesn’t benefit from directly involving himself in Yuu’s mess.

“You gotta have brains to win against someone stronger than you.”

In 3-20, Leona’s gears are turning. If he can use Yuu and Grim to distract Azul, he can learn Azul’s weaknesses and get rid of his own troublesome contract (whose conditions we don’t know – we just know Leona didn’t offer magic and refuses to elaborate what he exchanged). So he gives his insight on the situation, and what they should do.

In Jack’s eyes, of course, Leona’s advice is the usual underhanded cunningness signature to Leona. But given the fact Yuu and Grim are no match against someone like Azul, we return to Leona’s ‘by any means necessary’ philosophy. And those means, for him, include having Yuu’s group find out the holes in Azul’s plans. Leona doesn’t expect them to get far, but he can use whatever they find out to make his own next move.

He makes that next move in 3-29, and no I’m not going to do a play by play of the whole scheme, granted it’s important to note that Leona’s in on it with Yuu’s help in making that plan, because as of writing this we’re pushing two weeks of me working on an essay on an edgy catboy.

This scene once more establishes Ruggie’s role as Leona’s personal call out post. Ruggie notes it’s odd of Leona to just let Yuu and Grim lounge in his room when he could’ve just booted them from the start, but now Ruggie understands Leona allowed them in so that he could learn more about Azul in order to eliminate his contract him. Leona tries to be cheeky and say it was ‘for the sake of his underlings’, but they both know he’s in it for himself and have a good laugh about it at Azul’s expense (they would quickly regret this).

In Episode 3, Leona remains largely the same, with the most notable difference being how seriously he takes the upcoming RSA Magift Tournament to the point where he participates in the dorm’s mandatory training at the crack ass of dawn. This shows a change Leona wanted, in order to put his all in said tournament and keep Savanaclaw at the top of its game. As for the rest of the chapter, it’s Leona calmly using his head to craft a plan that works both in Yuu’s and (most importantly) his favour. Without the emotional toil he went through in Ep2, we see Leona at his best – craft yet mellow, cool and collected.

Leona in Episode 4

Leona’s role in Ep4 is nigh irrelevant, but I’ll go over it in one instance where he keeps his word of visiting family over the holiday, just as he promised Cheka. Given how he is, Leona could’ve weaseled his way out of the promise, but he knows he’d have to listen to his family’s complaints otherwise.

Leona in Episode 5

Again, Leona’s role is small – this isn’t his story, there’s no point expecting jaw-dropping development for him in Vil’s episode. But during 5-50 and 5-70, it’s made apparent Leona’s doing his part in setting up the Purple Stage (VDC stage) alongside the Magift and Track teams. It could go either way of him just telling the others what to do or actually working, but usually the story makes a point of having a character go “there that bitch goes again doing nothing while others do the work” to establish Leona’s involvement. No one says that here, which may imply Leona’s actually assisting as well, which, again, is a difference from things like his Dorm SSR.

As for 5-70, when Ruggie mentions the corrupted data of VDC, Leona says he programmed the recording to back up online in case anything happened – this is a vital part of recording VDC and shows just how far ahead Leona thinks when he applies himself.

Leona in Episode 6

I think I’d rather go over Leona’s role in Ep6 on a separate occasion once it’s completed in 2023 or whenever Aniplex decides to let their development team out of their basement for fresh food and water. But I’ll briefly go over two main points:

We return to the point of “using one’s head against someone stronger than you are” – Leona knows he and Ruggie stand no chance against STYX’s ferrymen and their anti-magic equipment. Instead of putting up any sort of fight that would endanger both him and Ruggie, Leona backs off, leaves both his magical pen and the dorm in Ruggie’s care, and willingly goes without a fight. He’s the only character that does so without needing convincing. He recognises the dire situation and doesn’t take a single risk.

Leona’s the one enlightening the rest of the characters in Overblot Jail about what the fuck is going on and what STYX is. He’s arguably the calmest of them all, but with that calm comes the disturbing amount of knowledge he has and the conclusions he can draw on their fate as STYX’s newest round of lab rats. Without Leona’s composure, there’s no doubt the others would’ve freaked out a shit tonne more than they already are. It’s generous to call Leona a pillar in this situation, but for what it’s worth, he dispels a lot of confusion and some panic acting as an exposition point for the episode.

Fairy Gala

For this, hat’s important to know is that Leona’s still his temperamental, impatient self in this event especially. But between the event story scenes of Leona being fed up with Vil and Crewel’s Spartan training, we have Leona’s Gala SSR showing him start to get his act together and glimpses of his competence when he puts his mind to something.

Some notable moments in the event story:

Part 13 - Leona goes out of his way to generally ease Ruggie’s unease with attempting to steal the tiara in such an open area. Even when Ruggie points out it’s easy for Leona to say Ruggie won’t get caught because he’s not involved in the attempt, Leona goes on to say he won’t allow it to happen. He’s making it clear he takes his role as the main distraction seriously, and that it won’t interfere with Ruggie’s role. To top it all off, it all boils down to showing a great deal of trust in Ruggie’s skill.

Part 15 - “It physically pains me to do this but…. I’m gonna do that signature pose… the trump card move Vil showed me.” Just like he says in the SSR, Leona really cannot stand doing something he doesn’t want to, let alone told to do by Vil, but he takes the situation seriously and doesn’t fuck it up for everyone else, in fact-

Part 16 - Just when the Fairies nearly discover humans in their midst when the sprinklers wash away the dust Yuu and Ruggie use, Leona takes action and uses his insane ‘charisma’ and strong presence to distract the Fairies so that the group can scram. With the operation so close to completion he isn’t about to let this screw everything up, and it’s his quick-thinking that helps Ruggie get away undetected.

Part 17 - As a reminder, Leona remains his confident self, especially in terms of his good looks and presence, and is more than ready to remind everyone he became the centre of the plan and a large contributor to its success. When it comes to pulling something off with all he’s got, Leona never shies away from reminding everyone else.

Gala Couture SSR – “After Making Me Do All This”

Part 1

The story starts similarly to how most of Leona’s interactions with Vil go - he’s taking the situation seriously, and bearing in mind Vil’s instructions to get the catwalk practise done and over with as easily as possible. Leona’s just about to bounce when Vil points out there’s plenty more to do, much to Leona’s annoyance. Vil insists on practising a pose at the end of the catwalk, but Leona isn’t having it, telling Vil to just tell him a pose to do and leave it at that. This doesn’t come as a surprise to Vil, who already enlisted Rook and Cater’s help to make Leona cooperate. Leona relents and agrees to cooperate if only to get it over with.

The conclusion to this first part is pretty simple. With Vil’s involvement, it’s best to compare it to Leona’s School Uniform R. Here, Leona’s more prone to bitching and moaning about basic instructions, but he does so whilst following them and explicitly paying attention to those instructions. Yes, it’s to get it done and over with, but previously Leona can’t breathe the same air as someone telling him what to do without arguing that it’s unnecessary.

It makes it clear Leona’s mindful of their circumstances during Fairy Gala, and as much of a pain as the ordeal is, Leona’s willing to bite the bullet to get things done. Being a snide, snarky bastard may as well be Leona’s oxygen supply, so that isn’t changing, though.

It becomes even more evident with Cater and Rook’s involvement. For the latter, Leona’s more likely to bounce than humour Rook’s whims. At least here, we see Leona willing to tolerate him and Cater for the sake of getting things done.

Part 2

Much of the second part features Cater and Rook annoying the hell out of Leona with detail after detail of the pose, constantly throwing instructions at him without a moment to breathe and getting up in his personal space to demonstrate the pose. Leona quickly snaps, telling them to knock it off. All of the finer details seem tedious to him, and he demands they just skip to the actual pose itself, as it’d be faster than fussing over everything else.

Leona’s always been confident in his good looks (I don’t blame him), so he’s quick to jump straight to the pose, imitating it in a way that impresses both Cater and Rook. Leona points out he’s used to posing for photographs and portraits for commemorative events back home, so it’s easy for him to adapt to this sort of pose. Vil agrees that his posing isn’t bad, and Leona’s more than happy to wrap things up, however, Vil dismisses the effort as just ‘ordinary’ and not enough. This, naturally, pisses Leona off. This whole time he’s (mostly) cooperated, albeit at his own pace and through his own means of getting it done as soon as possible, but nonetheless we see Leona take their instructions seriously enough that he could pull off the catwalk and basic pose without issue.

Vil debates with himself what the ‘something’ Leona’s pose is missing, but realises Leona’s gone. Cater tells him Leona said “I gave up” and left. Leona’s returned to his bedroom, trying to nap his frustration off. When the group finally tries to get him out, Leona snaps at them and reinforces something we’ve already known: he hates putting in serious effort only to have it criticised anyway.

"I went out of my way to help out, and all I get in return are complaints... I followed all your instructions already. I can't go further than this."

Leona’s resistance to criticism rears its ugly head once again. It’s one of his biggest flaws and not something he’s going to magically get over. The main takeaway, however, is his reaction. Yes, as usual, he prefers to drop the act instead of go along with the practise anymore. But this time, he doesn’t deflect the blame onto others. He’s pissed off by the criticism, but he can’t pin the blame on his ‘ordinary’ performance on anyone else. With that knowledge, he opts out of the practise instead. “I can’t go further than this,” pointing out his exasperation and that he’s had enough, when we know, compared to his School Uniform SR, he would’ve opted instead to try and deflect blame onto Vil for not ‘being clear enough’ with his instructions most likely.

Is this an assumed conclusion? Yes, but when it comes to Vil, comparing this interaction with the School Uniform SR makes it clear there’s a marked difference in Leona’s approach. He absolutely loves to rag on Vil and that won’t change, but given NRC’s circumstances during Fairy Gala, that won’t get Leona anywhere. He recognises there’s a time and place for his difficult personality, and this isn’t it. He’s more focused on getting the job done so he can relax like usual. Getting into it with Vil more than he already does won’t help him any.

Part 3

The finale shows Leona putting his all into the catwalk and "Eyes on Me, Not the Tiara" operation. It's really just mostly fairies swooning over him and Leona eating up the attention he's getting after he strikes a pose. According to Vil, despite Leona's cooperation, his usual intensity was missing. While the whole plan isn't detailed in the story, we see that Leona clearly took the instructions seriously enough to pull off the operation without a hitch. Granted, soon after the event, he's ready to sleep it all off like usual.

This goes to show that Leona’s ability to cooperate sometimes interferes with his pride, even if he’s doing so to get the job done. Vil claiming he’s missing that intensity Leona usually carries implies that Leona toning his attitude down (by the bare minimum, mind you) actually affects his performance nonetheless. Whatever conversation he and Vil held before the Gala takes place was at least enough for Leona to take into consideration - even if the whole fashion walk annoys him - and finally put his all into the performance.

This event shows us a Leona having to cooperate without already having an ulterior motive. He shares the same motive as everyone else - get the fairies the fuck off NRC’s campus and regulate its temperature. Leona really can’t play up his usual arrogance during the situation (but God does he try).

VARGAS Camp

To be honest, I believe thus far this event’s the mellowest Leona’s been. As stated before, I’ll only be looking into scenes involving him I believe to be most notable. Part 4 - When Ruggie and Epel pitch up Leona’s tent, Ruggie asks how it is. Leona responds "The greenhouse on our campus is better... but well, it's not as bad as I expected." We know how Leona tends to be. He loves to belittle things just for a cheap laugh. The fact he forgoes that and just gives his honest opinion and rolls with it shows a different side from what we’re used to. As I’ve said before, none of the Overblot characters drastically change. Riddle still has temper issues and Vil’s still nitpicking everything everyone does. What matters is that they’re in a better mental state, and that lets their strengths shine. .

One of the biggest differences for Leona, however, comes from the fact he’s far mellower in this event than he is during Episode 2 and even Fairy Gala. Apart from maybe two times, Leona seldom loses his temper and instead focuses on the most effective methods to obtain the VARGAS badges. Does he put in the work himself? No. The one thing about Leona that’s never going to change is his preference for a good rest opposed to anything remotely physical labour-related. He just balances it out with giving sound advice and intuition for solving their problems during the event. But he’s still not Mister Nice Guy and also initially refused to help look for Deuce until his alternative was filling in for Ruggie with rounding up the Magift team.

Part 5 - First strong scene of Leona giving a shit about the Magift team not being disbanded. I mean it’s Leona, if he really didn’t want to do it he would make a big fuss about not caring about the team disbanding or whatnot. The fact he participates in the first place once more reinforces how much he actually enjoys Magift.

Episode 1-6 - Another great Leona scene! When discussing how to handle all the tasks they must complete in a certain amount of time, Leona immediately has a game plan and discusses it with them clearly. He also uses the team’s collective pride as further motivation, going “Our club doesn’t have any herbivores afraid to move separately, right?” And once he’s got them convince and rearing to go, he assigns Ruggie and Epel their respective tasks. And I think it’s worth noting that Leona acknowledges Epel’s own skil and that he’s good with handiwork, reiterating that Leona can recognise others’ strengths and weaknesses pretty well.

And then he slips back into just doing what he wants and napping because he “worked really hard just now”. Compared to how this man would normally intimidate others or be passive aggressive with antagonistic comments to get people to listen to him, he chooses to stroke their ego and make them either overlook or forget the fact he just wants to sleep.

Episode 2 - : Alongside Leona explaining why the Fairies dislike the campfire, he’s nonchalant in noting how the second years don’t seem to know the story, and it’s strongly implied it’s because they didn’t pay attention to that little detail. Again we see a mellow reaction from Leona, who just warns them that Vargas will be insufferable to deal with if they fail, rather than being a complete ass about it. But, again, we tie back into Leona’s worst traits of being difficult when he just wants to rest, and he refuses to protect the fire when Ruggie tries to ask, claiming that weak Fairies should be no issue for them.

Outdoor Wear R – “I Was Just Worried Sick”

Breakdown: Whilst Leona just wants to take another nap, he can’t seem to find a decent spot without others bothering him. Ruggie comes in an suggests the cave as a nice, isolated spot for a nap – the catch being Leona has to get the students mining in out of there. The moment Ruggie brings this up, Leona knows exactly what the fuck is up. He’s annoyed, but knows Ruggie’s right regardless, and in the end it’s necessary to do for both ends to succeed (gathering magic gems for the challenge and Leona getting his undeserved nap).

When Leona gets there, he gets straight down to business. Leona just wants to slack off, there's no doubting that, but he can't do that with all these students occupying the cave. To get what he wants and what everyone wants, he tells them a more effective means of locating magic gems. All the easier since he knows all the sports teams need the gems to avoid disbanding. The lack of competition means nothing stops from Leona from taking the most straightforward approach by telling them the best way to locate gems and quickly get them out the cave with little fuss. And once again, he plays up being genuine in his intentions to further ease Savanaclaw's annoyance at Leona assisting rival dorms. Leona's not wrong in his reasoning, and in this case not completely ingenuine, but his motives behind that reasoning remains self-serving.

Halloween

I could go through the bulk of both Halloween events for this post, but I don’t want to.

In Scary Monsters, we see one of the most significantly different things Leona’s ever done. Leona and Ruggie both arrive at Scarabia's venue to purchase food for the dorm. Ruggie points out it's mostly Leona's idea.

Up till now, we can see Leona usually has a clearly self-serving motive behind any 'considerate' actions towards others. However, here, it's pretty obvious Leona's just disguising actual consideration as something that ultimately benefits him as the end all be all. Vulnerability and sentimentality are scarce resources in Savanaclaw and liable to get you the side-eye, and someone as prideful as Leona will be the last person to openly admit actually wanting to just reward the dorm for their hard work on the pirate venue. This helps enforce the fact Leona isn't doing anything he seldom feels like doing unless he wants to. Leona doesn't actively want to change how he is, let alone consciously, but instances like this make it apparent that a very tiny gear in his big brain shifts differently than the rest now.

He's able to balance out this change in character by ditching Ruggie when people swarm him for a photo though, and that lightens the impact of Leona's Good Deed of the Day(tm).

In Endless Halloween, we see more of Leona’s calmer, pragmatic side, especially in the Ghost World. He seldom freaks out, and the only times he does freak out involve Floyd being himself at the expense of others. A universal experience for anyone within Floyd’s chaos range, honestly. And Floyd’s really starting to test his fucking patience, but Leona realises that being reasonable doesn’t work on Floyd, not in the practical sense. So, instead, he makes up a wild story about a cursed magical item to freak the other two out when things in the lab go south. It’s all a bluff to try and reign Floyd in.

Later on, when Epel’s possessed, Leona brings up Epel’s usual ‘grit’, which shows that Leona acknowledges Epel’s efforts. As a tangent, Epel mentions this himself in one of his cards, and that Epel’s training and constant practise to improve eventually convinced Leona to allow Epel play in later Magift matches. This doesn’t make Leona soft on Epel whatsoever, since later on in Endless Halloween, Leona recognises that Ace only sticks with him in the cemetery not for protection, but to avoid Floyd’s extreme methods of using one of them as ghost-bait. Leona’s always fast to recognise someone sly, especially when they’re trying to be sly with him.

Scary Dress SR – “Sorry I Couldn’t Entertain”

Breakdown: In Jade’s usual style, he approaches a lone Leona during the Halloween party offering a drink. Leona, of course, remains rightfully suspicious of Jade’s intentions, even when he claims he just wants to ask Leona about his ‘incident’ with Floyd, since it apparently left Floyd in a sour mood and ‘as his brother’, Jade’s a tad concerned if Floyd ‘inconvenienced’ Leona. Leona doesn’t recall any actual ‘incident’, but he remembers Floyd showing up during one of Magift’s October practises. During that practise, Floyd saw Leona’s impressive powerhouse skills during the Magift skirmish with other students, and pestered Leona into letting him have a go against him.

However, during these October practises, Leona gets tunnel vision, and didn’t even notice Floyd to begin with, hence Floyd’s sour mood. He relays this to Jade, and further goes on to point out he would only give Jade that information, nothing else. And the only reason he does is because he doesn’t need to be ‘indebted’ to Jade for the drink – Leona knows how Octavinelle works, he isn’t about to fall for something as obvious as Jade’s approach

Here we see Leona considering the angles Jade approaches him from. It’d be easy to tell Jade to fuck off honestly, but Leona opts to just answer the question, and leave it at that. He won’t leave any openings for Octavinelle to try and hold over his head. This isn’t a momentous change in Leona’s character, it’s completely in line with what we expect of him. It’s just Leona saving himself the trouble of trying to actually shittalk someone like Jade, who’d just let it run off his back like water and try using it against Leona in the future. Compared to Leona’s recklessness in Ep2, it’s an improvement.

It’s another instance of most event cards leaning less on wanting to show a characters’ big changes, and more just showing their personality when around others they seldom interact with (Jade, in this instance). The most notable change for Leona happens in Scary Monsters, and it’s a single scene that says a lot about how Leona doesn’t want to show any iota of vulnerability or kindness lest sly people like Ruggie use that to their advantage.

Very Brief Wrap-Up Because I Need to Sleep

So, there you have it, at this point in time, it’s established Leona’s set in his ways. His arrogance won’t magically disappear, nor his temper or tendency to laze around. Leona has no intentions of changing himself for something he doesn’t feel bad for just for the sake of others. However, when we get into how he acts in Ep3 and events, we see that, despite not wanting to change his lifestyle, or even his point of view of his family situation, there are points where subtle changes can be seen. Nothing game-changing, and nothing that magically fixes Leona’s faults and issues, but little hints of mindfulness and being able to decide what’s best for others while still keeping his self-serving nature at the forefront. Hell, to a point, I’d argue what we see is less change in Leona and more of us seeing him at his best. Episode 2 is Leona at his worst, the Leona we see shows what he’s truly capable of when he puts his mind to it.

I do not trust this fandom’s reading comprehension, so I’m going to write this in bold, italicised letters.

I am not saying that Leona not do something he’d typically do means he’s completely gotten over that particular flaw. You don’t see any of the Overblot characters do this, Leona’s no exception. . If you are looking for life-altering changes from a character whose Unique Magic not only represents the drought Scar’s reign brought in, but also that character’s desire for everything and everyone to disappear and leave him be – I have news for you, you won’t get it. You’re actually going to have to read between the lines and come to your own conclusions about subtle changes. It really is just that simple.

#leona kingscholar #twst meta

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