#tried to draw a chibi and things went sideways

[babygray]

An idea I worked on for a little over 10 minutes before bed.

[valeriefauxnom]

Dev's (C)Leo Biases,

Or,

A Comprehensive History of How Leonidas Became Nearly Everyone's Object of Thirst

So, among the Dragalia Lost team, it was rather well known that they admitted to a strong Cleo bias.

It's pretty easy to see, in anything from Cleo's early spate of alts, like Dragonyule and Summer in quick succession, to the utterly random unique outfits they flaunted in ch.9 that you can just tell they drew for funsies but really liked them and wanted to put them in the game despite it serving no real purpose...

The dev team just really, really loved Cleo and drawing her. But after they apparently used up their Cleo allowance to make Gala Cleo probably the single strongest character in the game at the time, they cooled it down a bit.

However, as much as they were apparently thirsting over Cleo, I would joke that somewhere along the way, some part of the dev team, feeling desperate now that the yearly Cleo Allowance was running dry as they prepared to release Gala Cleo, decided to find a new fixation to quench their addiction.

And since Cleo was off-limits, they turned to the next best thing: crossing out the C in Cleo to find their newest substitute Dev Thirst character.

That's right, we're talking about the one and only Leonidas.

Leonidas had kinda just melded into the background with the rest of the siblings at this point to my observations. Sure, he was a campaign antagonist. People weren't particularly clamoring for him in particular over the other siblings, though. Honestly, I'd wager Emile was more popular at this stage, even in a 'love to hate' sense, just because we'd already seen him so much.

But then, it started. Whether it was art like this being posted on their twitter just a few scant months before G!Cleo's debut...

...They just seemed to have a certain edge in artworks featuring Mr. Curry in a way to make one squint and tilt your head sideways.

For instance:

It's one of those cases where you just kinda get a feeling the artist(s) found x attractive in a way that simultaneously still can give you a moment of self-doubt if that's not just you projecting because there's no blatantly obvious signs, you know? Whether it's something about the posing, or angles, whatever it is, I got this air increasingly whenever they put out any Leonidas art.

Thankfully, they decided to put me out of my misery and just flat out make what's likely the single most suggestive wyrmprint (or honestly art piece in general since Dragalia was thankfully very very very tame) starring none other than, you guessed it, Leonidas.

(Secret Cygames/Nintendo conversation, probably: "As you can see, it's vitally important that we draw this character in a speedo with sparkles around him." Nintendo: "...I'll allow it. This time.")

Even if he puts on some more clothes in the refined version, we're still back to that air I mentioned, as the shot focuses almost entirely on him instead of the wildly popular Chelle or his pet panther (which, yes, seemed to be an actual pet of his):

Even the Ilia-damned funny chibi comics got in on this thirst train as it went on and made quite possibly the raunchiest joke in the entire 400+ comic run featuring Leonidas, even if the exact same joke didn't make the translation overseas, however they tried. You can see a brief breakdown of that in THIS post.

Not content to restrict it to art and comics, Leonidas also dropped this line that is permanently engraved into my mind with just how shocking it was to see anything of this caliber in Dragalia, in his baby brother's story to boot!

At this point, I could no longer deny it: the devs and artists had collectively acquired a new fixation to satiate their once insatiable Cleo appetite in the form of Mr. Currymeister. (Don't worry about Emile there, he's just drowning, he does that all the time in waist-high water)

And this attitude even extends to in-universe, too! People increasingly fawned over the first prince, who very much was filling in the role of 'this prince you know vs. his hotter and more competent elder brother', as virtually represented by my expert skills in Microsoft Paint artistry as such:

Naturally, there was only so much time before the people IRL could succumb to Leonidas Fever (and no, this time we're not talking about all the people who were so devoted to this dude to effectively set themselves into a fatal, firey, steroid-filled death!) at this unrelenting onslaught.

It was hard not to see comments such as these that started pouring in (and yes, all of these were just about Leonidas exclusively):

(I'll attribute the misspelling to being overcome with Leonidas Fever, a grave illness indeed!)

(Another serious symptom: the decline of any self-preservation instinct around Leonidas, who is indeed Very Dangerous and Will Kill You!)

Ahem. You get the picture. Thus concludes the slow, insidious buildup from just another sibling for Euden to probably commit a whoopsie-daisy fratricide in the future to one of the fandom's favorite menaces, all carefully plotted-out by the collective efforts of devs who were the first to succumb to the sickness...Right?

This concludes my professional historical report on this very serious issue that I suspect lingers to this day. The Fever has but been put into remission; it has not faded yet.

Extra:

So a long time ago I commented that some of the royal family seemed to have pointier teeth than normal, which I speculated because they deliberated giving a bit more 'draconic' traits to define dragonblood, and I didn't realize how pervasive this was until I saw Emile's model there. Look at his fang!

...

...How did I forget the weapon skin of Leo's gun is additionally named "Royal Dominator"?