Hello again!! Sorry to pester you with my asks lol! I was just thinking about your Leona dream animatic! I saw a random post about Ruggie's dream version of Leona and how it would be if he appeared in Ruggie's dream!
The post had two versions. Leona as a student or Leona appearing as the Prince like he's mentioned in the canon dream!
I like tl think it would've been fun to see Leona as the Prince there too! Maybe visiting Ruggie's school the day the others dreamshift there!
He'd be darkness and maybe he's also Ruggie's idol, hence why Ruggie might be a little harder to convince than in canon!
But I would love to hear your thoughts too!! Again, I adore your art!
I specifically love ur Ruggie's ears lol! Idk why. Hope to hear from you soon! <33
Hi again! Don't worry, you aren't pestering me at all. :)
About the dream, well if Leona's a student there then he's easier to weave in the scene but it doesn't make that much sense in the dream itself as he is the one who funded the school after graduating NRC so, also the school seems to only have hyenas.
Going the other route we need a reason for him to be in the school at that moment and a why. So I thought, chronologically in the dream Ruggie's dad comes back with money in tow, which was the first step in improving the community, then after graduating NRC Leona starts his project for developing and improving the hyenas quarters (which the timing is like super quick actually, like good for them but it's impossibly fast, it's the most unrealistic part of Ruggie's dream by far with how grounded it isfor the most part). Using this, and the fact that this dream version of Leona is more hands on, as a starting point I thought that to assure the project helps the hyenas as much as possible he's gonna work alongside them and listen to what they have to say; and for that he's gonna start by talking to the guy who started the work before him: Ruggie's dad.
Ruggie's dad acts as the spokesperson of the community and is the one who interacts most with Leona. He ends up getting attached to kid as he sees another side of him that the rest of the country ignores so he decides to invite him to dinner where he finally meets Ruggie (who's a bit starstruck). This becomes a common enough ocurrence and Leona and Ruggie become friends.
Because he likes working on the project and he wants it to be as good as it can, he comes pretty often to the hyenas quarters to see how things are coming along, so people get used to see him around. And because of that and how much his doing for them, the hyenas adopt pretty much Leona into the community (which makes Leona secretly very happy as he feels more comfortable with them than he has ever felt at the palace (also it ties well with the movie)).
One of the places Leona goes the most is the academy, as it is the jewel crown of the project, (having an underprivileged community catch up to their peers academically so they are on more even ground with them is an important foundation, also I'm pretty sure they give night classe to adults), also it's an excuse to meet up with Ruggie when his classes are done for the day (and check up on him as the darkness).
Okay now that we've laid all of that, I wouldn't change the dream until they start their plan to wake Ruggie, which I also won't change because 1. yeah the biggest discrepancy with the dream and reality is Ruggie financial situation... and 2. as shitty and as much of a dick move it is, Azul is to funny in that part, guy has held a grudge since book 3 and it shows, also it's in character for him to be such an asshole.
The changes would start with Ruggie saying no to going out with his friends after classes as he is meeting with someone else already (it's Leona obvs), then Azul and co would arrive, things would stay the same, but after he jumps onto the fountain and begins to wake up, the one who takes him out of the water is Leona, who dryes him off with magic and starts questioning what going on and what was Ruggie doing. Leona confronts the gang while Ruggie's still a bit dazed. The gang are trying to get Ruggie's attention to get him to wake up reminding him that this is not real but Leona is of course arguing agaisnt them, saying to Ruggie how he wouldn't ever let him and the others go hungry, how much he is doing for them, etc. When Leona asks why he's even bothering with chump change when he'll give whatever Ruggie asks for nothing in exchange, that's what makes Ruggie finally snap out of it and realize that this Leona is not the real one, so he fights him off. And then we would continue with how it goes with canon.
I have to add that I like that Ruggie wakes up so easily with little push from the others because it makes sense for him, (he's not someone who hides from reality, on the contrary) so I didn't to change that much.
Also thanks!, I really like drawing Ruggie's ears, hyenas ears are cute and so are Ruggie's <3 Here have some more art as a treat:
baratheonpilled
janainaart
blakekathryn
yousharknotpass
