Leon

Links: Character tag / alt character tag

Age: 25

Height: 5'9

Birthday: August 23



Notes:

Generally quiet and reserved and personality wise just keeps to himself, but if he’s close to you, he’ll smile a lot and crack jokes. He enjoys other people’s presences, but not necessarily being Loud or Extremely Active in a conversation

He’s not good with emotions and is pretty awkward—this is not a result of any previous trauma or abandonment issues like potentially implied in FF8 canon, it’s just How He Is

Comparatively to FF8, he’s less Broody Moody Hate My Life. He’s always come off that way (being NOT broody moody that is) in KH canon, which is largely attributed to “he’s older and way past it” but in FtPverse it’s because he never initially had much reason to be

He was raised by Elmyra, Aerith’s mom, as Aerith’s sister

He introduces himself as "Leon Gainsborough" and, always will

He likes thinking things through first and generally will resort to logic or reason before emotions—he’s gotten better at listening more to his heart than his mind but old habits die hard and he’s rarely impulsive ((except when someone he cares about is in danger, then he gets pretty impulsive))

Aerith is the same, except, for her it’s anger, not impulsiveness—on the same vein: Aerith may think more with her heart than with her head, unlike Squall, who’s the other way around

As with Aerith, he had to suffer the death of his mom, then Zack, then the fall of Radiant Garden all within just a few years of each other

He changes his name to Leon not just because Radiant Garden fell, but also because he lost his mother, and because he feels like he wasn't very reliable at the time and failed Aerith as a brother and so he decided "I don't want to be Squall because Squall's a terrible brother, I'll be someone else, I'll be Leon."
((Aerith's saddened by it but is REAL glad he chooses to go from "Squall Gainsborough" to "Leon Gainsborough" and not to "Squall Leonhart" because "Squall was a terrible brother, I don't want to be Squall" could've easily turned into "I don't deserve to be her brother at all))

Leon always wants to do the Right Thing, but isn’t here for calling it “heroics” or calling himself a hero—he’s just been taught to be kind and compassionate to others and holds pretty hard to that

            He also puts other’s safety and comfort first, it’s the Gainsborough way

He doesn’t have terrible self-esteem, but it’s probably not the greatest

HE’S PROBABLY ALSO, AGAINST SWEARING, LIKE AERITH?? he’s a little more lenient but sometimes that’s just because Aerith has always beat him to it when it comes to calling someone out. I mean. they had the same mother and Aerith had to learn it from somewhere, there's no reason at this point that Leon didn't learn it as well

History:

Growing up raised in Aerith’s house, in Elmyra’s house, as Aerith’s brother

This means: growing up with a Healer Mother—people always go to Aerith for minor healings at school, but some ask Squall as well, maybe he’s teased for it sometimes by boys their age who are rude (until Aerith reminds them who it was who healed them after doing x stupid thing)

He and Aerith both probably missed school frequently-ish to help their mom, perhaps they traded off, or perhaps it was Aerith who missed more than him because she was the one who had a better knack for it, and he always went to school so he could help her catch up on what she missed???

Still: he’s the one on hand when Aerith needs help with a healing, because he was taught how to deal with it as well, even if his own magic isn’t strong enough to be a healer

He doesn't have much abandonment issues but he still kind of holds a grudge against Laguna ((it’s less “why didn’t you come back for me” now and more “I can’t believe this, only an idiot wouldn’t read a full letter about their wife’s death”))

The events of FF8, with Zack and Aerith tagging along

Zack and Aerith’s relationship as a whole I guess??

Losing Elmyra

Losing Zack

Losing Radiant Garden

Living in Traverse Town in a funk for a few years, because he lost a lot this year too, because Elmyra was the only parent he ever felt really cared about him, because without her the only family he has left is Aerith and boy does he feel like he failed her. ((His funk does not get as bad as Aerith's does, but, it's still a Funk, they both suffer so much.))

His relationship with Rinoa / helping Rinoa cope after Ultimecia, Rinoa helping him cope after losing almost everything

Living in Traverse Town

And for fans of FF8, the short explanation is "Raine lives in RG vs Winhill, that's where Laguna ended up, they got married, Raine got pregnant but literally on top of that Ellone was kidnapped by Adel so Laguna went after her and never found out about Squall so never came back"

And from there: I decided Aerith's mom, Elmyra, and Raine were good friends and so it was hard to consider anything but "Elmyra takes in Squall after Raine dies because she's the son of one of her best friends, she wouldn't not"

Fighting style:

He’s fairly well balanced between physical and magic, as most of the FF cast is, but he leans a little more towards being physical?? He may have a particular knack for offensive magic?? He’s got a good eye for when people are getting hurt but he’s not as versed as Aerith is in curative magic

Gunblade use obviously

Potentially kept Shiva?? As?? A summon??? Hmm

General blizzard affinity regardless, and doesn’t use fire magic as much as anyone else would (old habits die hard. for non ff8 fans: using fire would decrease his compatibility with Shiva) 

Relationships:

Aerith

source

He and Aerith are literally brother and sister, raised together, and he,,,, I mean,,, they’re siblings

And it’s so hard to translate siblings into words when you have them because it’s not something you think about,,,, but they look after each other, he looks after her and makes sure she doesn’t tire herself out / get taken advantage of

He thinks her kindness is great, it’s what being a Gainsborough is all about, but he has also learned that you can’t neglect yourself, and Aerith—like their mother—forgets that sometimes

He also feels like he failed her for the funk they both had in Traverse Town, for not being reliable in such a hard time, and that’s why he abandoned the name Squall. He’s very proud to consider himself a Gainsborough though and couldn’t bear to take that away from Aerith 

He and Aerith probably talk quietly a lot, about life and stuff, but I mean, just because they’re siblings, and they understand each other well, because, they’re siblings!!!!

((All my thoughts ever about Aerith / Leon sibling dynamic can be found here.))

Elmyra

The only woman he’s ever considered a mother, the only person he’s ever considered his parent. He doesn’t blame Raine for dying, but she was never in the picture for him as “mother”, and Laguna was gone for 18 years of his life. He doesn’t blame Laguna exactly, but I don’t think he’d call Laguna “dad” either.

He’s proud to be a Gainsborough, and he’d much prefer a life with Aerith and Elmyra over a potential life with Laguna and Ellone

Elmyra is his mother and he loved her dearly and when she died it was a heavy blow because there go all of his parents (growing up knowing your real mom died and your dad never came back to get you isn’t easy) (Aerith was adopted but because Elmyra didn’t know Aerith’s parents personally she never talked about them) (Aerith probably benefited from that, and Elmyra regrets talking about Laguna and Raine so much in front of Squall, she really does)

He misses her dearly, and her death is a burden, but it’s been five years, and he’s had time to heal. He has other family now, and like Aerith knows Zack would be disappointed for her never stop mourning him, he knows that Elmyra wouldn’t have wanted mourning to get in the way of anything else, and would probably be proud of him for this extended family they have adopted

Rinoa

I could give you a cutesy image but instead have:

Also important to consider is this conversation, along with this one, and basically my entire squinoa tag on tumblr

As we can see over the events of FF8 themselves, even at age 17 or 18, boy they have it bad for each other ((also traveling together for a year is a pretty stellar way to build a relationship))

They’ve seen each other since FF8, of course—it’s been about a year, a little over, since they’ve seen each other by the time ATR rolls around, but they definitely have seen each other fairly frequently in the seven years between FF8 and ATR

The point is they do know each other really well between ff8 and Rinoa staying in RG for a while, along with them just visiting a lot in Traverse Town

I can't really fully articulate their relationship, especially since it's built on different dynamics than in FF8, but I know they know each other well and are good friends / kinda dating probably ((I'm not 100% sure where they stand yet, and the year gap since the last time they saw each other isn't helping me make a decision))

She likes teasing him, he loves her so he puts up with it, sometimes he teases back, she’s really open with her feelings and while she understands he isn’t quite with his, she gets frustrated with him about it sometimes / tries to make him talk about his feelings

Zack

Okay!!!

Zack and Leon know each other well enough, I mean, this is literally “guy who’s dating my sister” except Zack was around a little more often and not always just for “dates” sometimes just to “hang out” and sometimes that hanging out included Squall, and sometimes it included Rinoa, and sometimes it also included Cloud and Tifa,

They were decent friends at the very least like I can’t pretend they weren’t. also they travled together for nearly about a year during FF8 ((Zack and Aerith were there for the events of FF8 because why not, I decided)) and while there were a lot of other people there it’s still, well, they got to know each other that’s for sure

SO THEY KNEW EACH OTHER WELL, and he was pretty devastated to hear that Zack died, because they were good friends, he wouldn’t not be, yanno???

((he doesn’t take it as hard as Aerith because he wasn’t there when Zack died, wasn’t there thinking “I should be able to fix this but I can’t oh my god oh my god oh my god” HE STILL TAKES IT HARD BUT THERE’S A REASON HE DOESN’T TAKE IT AS HARD AS AERITH,,,, AND IT'S NOT JUST BECAUSE HE WASN'T THE ONE DATING ZACK))

Cid

Cid adopts him and Aerith kind of when the world falls, or he looks after them, and they look after him, and it’s not like New Parent anything, because no one could replace Elmyra, and at this point Squall’s 21 and, well, not in desperate need of any parental figure in his life

Cid’s not a good parent anyway

They probably knew him before Traverse Town—maybe he had bad back problems so was always stopping by for something to ease his back pain, and from that Elmyra learned he could make soup and so he was over a lot on busy days, she called him up for favors, favors which just included “Cid please make soup I’m swamped with people please”

So he was around a lot I think, maybe a good Family Friend, but the relationship dynamic is different than it used to be

Still: by this point, they have lived together for five years, and they are family even if he is not a “parent”

Leon makes sure Cid’s eating/sleeping like Aerith does, because that’s the Gainsborough thing to do, to take care of people, and after five years they’ve all worked into a grove of family and taking care of each other

Yuffie

context is here but it's nothing specific i just thought this was funny

They get along but I mean the entire HB gang does after the 5+ years they’ve spent living together and Yuffie is like the only one that didn’t know anyone (terribly well) beforehand but she still does know them and

I mean Leon doesn’t dislike her, she’s still family

There’s nothing really deep here

Also Yuffie generally listens to Leon so there's that too

And I guess looking at some of their conversations with each other in games Leon gets vaguely exasperated with her a lot (but perhaps that's just Leon being Leon) and she teases him quite like a younger sister would, so there's that too

they're family!! As I mentioned up in Aerith's section, it's hard to fully articulate that and what it entails into words!!!!

Riku

Leon keeps an Eye on Riku because he’s the most level headed among them minus Aerith and he’s also the first person Aerith told about Riku's destructive habits, 

Leon is like a silent protective older brother ((he’s good at that, he determined he would be, that Leon would be a good brother when Squall wasn’t,,,,,,))

  

They bond a lot over books, especially Wheel of Time, and Leon is there when Riku gets so frustrated at the books that he literally throws them across the room.

Leon cares about Riku a lot, they all do, and when Riku doesn’t want to talk to Aerith, doesn’t want to talk to everyone, Leon’s there to not say anything but to just shove a book into Riku’s hands and tell him to read, to read and forget everything else, everything will be better when you come back out

Namine

She kind of reminds him of, well, him, more than Riku does. She’s quiet and not good with words and indecisive

Not to mention she…. Reminds him of Rinoa, especially now, and it’s not like, a lot, and hardly personality wise, just with what she’s Been Through

The Gainsborough thing to do, the Leon and Aerith thing to do, is at this point, offer someone who needs a home a home, and so it was no question after they adopted Riku into the family that they’d adopt Namine too.

I think Leon and Namine would get along well because they are similar in personality, and maybe they don’t Talk a lot, but they do quietly bond a lot, because they both are that kind of person who’s not always actively participating in a conversation,,,

And at this point, Namine’s been living with them for two months, she’s definitely part of the routine and part of the family,

In Dead Inside she was always there being stubborn at Riku’s side and maybe she reminded Leon of Rinoa, like she reminded Aerith of Rinoa. There was no point where he did not think “she is too young to be in this situation”, no point where he did not think “Riku is too young to be in this situation, Sora is too young, Kairi is too young” because even if he knows he was not much older, he knows that he was also too young when they went after Ultimecia. He and Aerith have differing viewpoints on that, for sure.

Namine moves in and becomes a part of the family and part of the routine, and she is quiet, and he understands what it’s like to want to be quiet, to want space, so he does not bug her. The real reason she’s so distant and clunkily fit into this pattern is that she is suffering, and how can you be comfortable in a new home when you are not comfortable in your skin?

When he learns how she is suffering, like Aerith, he is there immediately to help her. It’s the Gainsborough way, and he knows how Rinoa suffered, and wants no one to suffer like that, no one deserves to suffer like that, so he is there immediately for her to help as best as he can. It’s all he can do.

Cloud/Tifa

It’s not like he doesn’t know them I mean Zack brought Cloud around a lot so of course they talked and then Cloud frequented a lot when Sephiroth was a thing

So I mean

They got to know each other well enough and I wonder if Leon ever has sat Cloud down and in his firm voice gone “look you’re not just hurting yourself your hurting those around you you’ve gotta pull your act together and get this taken care of”

Leon / Cloud / Zack / Aerith / Tifa / sometimes Rinoa all hung out so they're definitely all FRIENDS, Cloud and Tifa are just not exactly family

Leon and Cloud hanging out semi-frequently because Zack would bring Cloud by, and then sometimes Zack and Aerith would do something alone together, thus leaving Leon and Cloud to their own devices

Tifa and Leon generally  treat each other with a good-natured humor for the most part, though they do occasionally rub each other the wrong way. Tifa and Aerith are polar opposites, and while Tifa and Leon aren't POLAR opposites, they've still got conflicting personalities because Aerith and Leon were raised by the same woman and so they share some of the same traits that put them at ends with Tifa

OF COURSE!!! they get along just fine, and they don't really argue a lot ((DIch116-119 was an exception because Shad, and there were exceptions before then because Sephiroth)), but they don’t always agree, either