ioculus | TL;CR what up!!!

YEAH SURE. I ONLY HAVE THIS ASSHOLE.

Kuwata Leon | danganroombas | do I gotta do this when it's the journal I'm on

yoooooo

YOOO ATHENA! Leon's fond of her, though she's surprising at every turn, and he's not always sure how to deal with that. He's finding he can't predict her at all. Is she a cool competent judo-knowing lawyer or a total weirdo? Is she really smart or really dumb? He honestly can't tell sometimes. Athena always manages to piss him off when he's not expecting it, or totally charm him when he's not expecting that, either; he's used to being able to put people in categories of sorts, and he just can't with her. Every time he thinks he's got her down, she throws something else at him.

It's not a bad thing, though, and he likes her overall; he'd call her a friend for sure, and he'd be really concerned about her if he knew her on a deeper level. Right now he doesn't! He's still working out what he's dealing with, and he's not aware enough to tell when she's acting off or needs help. As he gets to know her better he might catch on. But right now they don't know much about one another, because they always get caught up in hilarious stupid shit instead; he appreciates that on a level because it's not like he's enjoying things being all serious all the time or feeling like he's on a constant emotional rollercoaster, but it does also make it harder for him to understand how she's feeling or what she needs. She's his hot weirdo friend AND SHE'S FINE!!!

He does think she's hot, and he means it when he says so, but she's also actually not his type, and he's not crushed that she's seeing someone else. Athena's more energetic in the tomboy way than he likes girls. He still would have gone out with her, though, because he's totally willing to give cute girls a try most of the time, and he likes spending time with her.

leon's dumb thoughts on inaba so far!!

SHE'S WEIRD. He disliked her at first, which is a feat, since she's super cute and he was predisposed to like her; after that conversation turned, though, he started feeling better about her, and he doesn't associate her with negativity or criticism anymore. He still doesn't know quite what to make of her, though. This is in part because he has a feeling she doesn't like him, and he doesn't do very well with people who don't like him, especially when it's in an ambiguous place and he's not sure where he stands. It would be easier in some ways if she flat-out disliked him--not that he'd be happy about that. But he's not sure what to do with lukewarm, and he can't quite tell how he should be acting around her. (This is all his own perception, of course.)

So he wouldn't call her a friend, largely because he doesn't think she'd return the sentiment. But he doesn't dislike her, either, even if he's not sure yet what to make of her. She's a little awkward, a little overly serious, a little rude. At the same time, he can relate some to her feelings on things here, and he likes talking to her just fine when they happen to cross paths. He's curious about her, but there's a distance he won't quite close until the other shoe drops regarding her thoughts on him.

!!!

BEAUTIFUL PRECIOUS KIRIGIRI. As is abundantly obvious!! Leon has a thing for her and is so ready to ask her out sometime, as soon as he stops being a gigantic loser. Clearly she wouldn't ever say yes to a gigantic loser! Honestly, part of his dithering is that he's fairly certain she's going to say no. If she does, he's not the kind of guy who's going to hold it against her or let it ruin their friendship; she's really important to him as a friend, too. But he's still not looking forward to being shot down, and so he's fussing over setting up a perfect situation in order to delay what he sees as the inevitable.

That's a tangent, though. Leon's feelings on Kirigiri are still a little twisted up, and he's not ready to confront all of them yet. On a conscious level that he understands, he's extremely grateful she's here and that they're friends. He was expecting some sort of blowback for everything that happened at home, and it's taken him a while to accept that Kirigiri (and Naegi, and the others) isn't harboring some secret resentment or distaste for him because of Hope's Peak. But by now he finally believes it, and he's starting to ease into having a normal friendly relationship with her. It's not like the weight of it isn't there hanging over him, because it still is, and it makes him awkward--but he's starting to be able to work through it and be normal supportive friends, which is exactly what he wants.

(Consciously. Unconsciously, there's some more going on inside of him that he doesn't understand or know how to deal with, and it might come out eventually, but he doesn't really want it to.)

He appreciates a lot that she's there for him, including him in things and informing him and comforting him and supporting him. If it weren't for her, he'd be worse off mentally than he is here, and he knows it. The more comfortable he gets, the more he appreciates it, and the more he would really like to show his appreciation by getting touchy-feely with her because that's what he does. It doesn't hurt that she's beautiful and has a cute little smile . . .

He's a little torn about it, though, because as a general rule he doesn't date seriously, and he's not sure what sort of thing they could even work out or what he'd want himself. He definitely doesn't see her as just another hot chick to try and get lucky with, which complicates things. But for now he's not worried about it, because he doesn't foresee it ever coming to that point anyway. He just wishes. He cares for her deeply, anyway, and would protect her in any way he needed to if it came to that. And he trusts her, despite the complications that come along with his situation with canonmates; she's proven that she cares about him too. That means everything to him in this screwed up situation they've found themselves in.

Leon on the responsible adult

Phoenix ur old. Leon is still young enough, and inclined enough in that direction personality-wise, to view authority figures/adults with an us-versus-them kind of mentality; he's in that stage of life where parents, teachers, coaches, and the like aren't really "people" in their own rights. They're just forces out to oppress him tbh. And for the most part he hasn't actually experienced that in Cerealia (other than a vague concept of CERES themselves as oppressive adults), but Phoenix plays right into it. Not only is he just an older dude, and not only he is a lawyer (which is a totally Old Dude Profession), but he's literally someone's dad. That right there is the epitome of being a grown-up. And not only that, but the dad of a cute girl he went on a date with, which is totally unfair, why'd he get hooked up with the girl whose DAD IS HERE?! LAAAAAAME

So he definitely slots Phoenix into the same category as like, a coach or teacher or whatever. Someone to be automatically wary of and feel oppressed by and awkward around. His actual personality doesn't even figure into that! It's all stereotyping really. Phoenix sometimes fits into the stereotype and sometimes doesn't, which confuses matters; on one hand he does things like lecture Leon over grammar and swearing, which 100% fits into what Leon would expect him to do, DAD! But on the other hand, sometimes he acts more childish or relatable than Leon is expecting, and he's not sure how to deal with that. Thinking of him as an individual is confusing.

He'd be really weirded out to know he and Larry are "best friends" (iirc this has in fact been mentioned to him in a thread, but not directly, and it was before he met Phoenix, so he hasn't put together yet that it's the same guy). Larry is just barely managing to overcome his Oldness and fit into the category of "cool adult," so associating the two of them would feel really strange. DOES THIS MAKE PHOENIX COOLER OR LARRY LESS COOL?? BOTH? Probably both.

What does Leon make of him?

William's differences make him entertaining and interesting to interact with, and that's why Leon can handle him. Like, Leon is not actually a guy who does well with being insulted or criticized, for the most part; he can get really defensive really fast. And there are times where William starts to tread close to that, so it's likely that Leon will get Actually Annoyed at him someday. But the thing about William is that he's such a different person, from such a different world, that his criticism is harder to take offense at. Leon takes critical comments worse the easier he can relate to the person; if Naegi or someone called him a dumb lazy pervert he'd be intensely pissed off, because Naegi is a normal dude from his world. But William isn't! William is a fancy rich foreigner from like a billion years ago, which means there's a safety distance there of "well of course he thinks that about me, he was raised totally differently!" It's harder to take it personally when you're coming from two extremely different life circumstances.

All that is just to say that in some ways, Leon can't take William seriously. There's a callousness in the way he looks, or looked, at him that he's just starting to get over. He likes him well enough, but there was an undercurrent there of "because he's funny and it's funny to see what old timey thing he'll say next," along with teasing him over his delicate sensibilities. Not so much caring about him as a person or wanting to get to know him. He LIKED him, but as entertainment, tbh.

That is starting to change some, though, especially in their text thread where William's starting to reveal more about himself. It's hard to keep thinking of a guy as just entertaining once you find out a little bit about his crappy life situation, and Leon was being serious when he was encouraging about William's ambitions and reassuring him he'd manage it. (Not that Leon knows even the slightest thing about that, but his heart was in it!) And he sympathizes with how William feels about CERES and everything, so basically the more they talk and the more they agree on things, the more William shifts from being someone amusing to tease to being a person that Leon cares about getting to know and would support if it came down to it. He's still entertaining and all, but in a more relatable way. He's a real boy. CONGRATULATIONS

He'll still tease and annoy him though because it's funny and cute.

This is interesting and I'm kind of excited to see when William finally goes a little too far, since he does that easily.

Leon mah man!

I already mentioned in my answer to Phoenix that Leon has trouble with adults; he sees them as authority figures and Other and totally not on the same level as him. He's never had a friend who was an adult, or been able to relate to one. With Larry, honestly, he can sometimes forget about it and sometimes he can't. On one hand it's Larry and he's definitely not an adult in the way of Phoenix, or Leon's parents, or coaches, or anything like that! He's a relatable adult who makes adults seem like actual human beings, which is weird and new and kinda cool. On the other hand, when Leon went around texting his male friends during the flood to boredly ask them about girls they're into, he deliberately left Larry off the text; it felt weird to strike up that conversation with a guy that much older than he is. (He doesn't know exactly how old Larry is, but he can tell he's Old Enough.) It's a small thing, but it's a reminder to him of the fact that that distance exists. The girls you like are probably all way too old for me and if they're not that's creepy!!

But while he has moments like that, for the most part Larry transcends the boundaries of age and comes off totally relatable. There's plenty else Leon would go to him with, including dating-related stuff, and it's easy to forget most of the time in conversation that there's an age gap there. Once they're talking, it's easy, because they're pretty similar in some ways. Leon's issues with adults mostly stem from feeling like they have expectations of him or think they're better than him, because he's That Teenager who's all like NUH UH YOUR YEARS OF LIFE EXPERIENCE AND EDUCATION DON'T MEAN YOU'RE THE BOSS OF ME!!! But since there's no hint of that in talking to Larry, he doesn't fit into that category, and instead floats in his own weird category of "we're friends and you're cool but it's still a little different." Maybe he's like a cool uncle or something . . .

If and when he puts together that Larry and Phoenix are buddies he'll be really, really confused.

TL;CR what up!!!

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