Collection of bg3 sketches I've been nibbling at over the month. teehee

There is this conversation Aisha has with Sophia in 29.5 that I'm kinda obsessed with since a lot of it is about Alec and was curious if you also had thoughts. This bit especially I like:

"Not a guy that’s in touch with his emotions. Way I always saw it, they’re there, he’s just oblivious to it all. Had to be. So it’s only after he’s through with you that he realizes maybe he was a little hard on you, maybe he twisted the knife harder than he usually would, because it bugged him. There you are with a family, and he can feel your emotions, and he totally knows you don’t even realize it in the slightest. He’s blind to his own emotions and you’re blind to the emotions of others"

oh you bet i have thoughts. i sure do have Thoughts.

i did mention this convo in the recent 2.4k word post breaking down The Alec Trauma & why we should all be soooo nicey to him but BOY is there more i could say about it beyond that. this scene serves to recontextualize much of alec's character, so it's most useful for analysis in how it can be applied to reinterpretations of his prior actions. specifically the shit he does in his interlude, so i've been holding back the vague tidal wave sloshing around in my brain abt it until i get to my inevitable longass post analyzing said interlude.

the thing abt alec's interlude is that you do not actually have to hear this from aisha to pick up on the fact that he's being a very unreliable narrator about himself within it. he's rlly like. Yeah no I totally don't care. I'm calm. I'm chill. I'm normal and unaffected. I'm not feeling anything about anything. I'm good. [said while getting ridiculous amounts of revenge on someone who abused taylor while remembering his dad abusing him the whole time]

gonna uh. cut myself off there before i blink and this is 1k words long. but the gist of the 29.5 convo is that it outright confirms what's already kinda obvious: alec isn't half as detached as he thinks he is! he can and does feel upset, angry, happy, jealous, etc, but he's been repressing any & all emotional expression for so long that he doesn't notice what he's feeling & only barely outwardly indicates it via his actions. and that's because he had to be oblivious, like imp says--if he had felt the full brunt of the emotions heartbreaker's abuse elicited in him, or if he had shown any of those emotions outwardly, he wouldn't have survived. he was only really just starting to gain a little bit more self-awareness right around the time he died, and that slight bit of emotional literacy was what motivated him to take the action that killed him.

really deeply sad character honestly. jealous and upset that someone else gets to have a family who loves them and doesn't notice or appreciate it, and he doesn't even realize he's jealous and upset. always taking actions w/o ever understanding what emotions of his are motivating them. and the one time he learns enough to realize that he does care about something, that he does care about the only real connection he's ever had, he cares about it so deeply that he decides to die for it. Man.

ok ive lowkey become obsessed w your split au and im!!!!! it's soooo cute. i can't help but think tho, what would shadow's spilts look like and how would they treat sonic? because oh my god the chaos (ba dum tss)

Hiiiiii!!! Tysm!!! I've actually wondered that myself, like, if I was able to divide Sonic's character in five main traits, how would I do that with Shadow? And I think I do have the answer!!

First I have to say that I imagine them only having different colored stripes instead of changing the black fur, I just think it would look better nsnskfnsf

So, first would be Stoic, very serious, very, of course, stoic. His stripes could be maybe a desaturated purple, and he's always with his arms crossed. I like to think that he's just as serious when Sonic's around, but he's internally screaming lol

Then, Selfless, and I like to think his stripes would be blue! He's kind of the Determined in this case, so it feels right to give him blue stripes, like Sonic's fur. He, like Determined, would be very inclined to helping others no matter what would happen to him, but I don't think he would be as obssesive as Determined is, so wouldn't be so desperate to make sure that Sonic's okay, but if needed, he would put himself in front of Sonic to protect him:]

Caring would be one as well, and I'm kind of tempted to make him pink, but then he would be too similar to Kind, so maybe we'll make him an orange-ish tome of yellow, just very warm. He's the one who would take care of the chao and the small kittens!!!! He would be very attentive with Sonic, making sure that he's comfortable, and happy -when reunited, Stoic would never let this side show, but separated, Caring gets to be as free as he wants!!-

Shy, of course, because you cannot tell me this man is not shy. I think I want his stripes to be green! He could be pink, but I really like the idea of him blushing green, and I think that based on that, Shy's stripes being green would be super cute! He would normally hide behind Stoic, who is apparently the one that controls everything, but when being separated, Shy is out on his own, and he's very, you know, shy, so he's not having the best time. Don't even let him get close to Sonic because he could faint just with how embarassed he is NSKXNSKFNSK

And finally, Egocentric! You won't make me think this man doesn't have an ego, because he totally does. I think his stripes could be a more purple-pink, maybe magenta. Just not too similar to Shadow's red stripes nskxbskc. Egocentric's the one that would repeat the Ultimate Lifeform thing no stop, and challenge Sonic to anything he feels he could win, and just bragging about how powerful he is. He might be a bit like Competitive, in fact, I think they could either be best friends or absolutely hate each other, no middle point.

And yeah! I think that would be it! I don't think I'm actually gonna draw them because I don't want anyone to get too attached to them -remember that the au is about Sonic being divided lol-, but this was fun to think about! And I think that maybe you get to see a little bit better my interpretations of the characters:]

Feel free to ignore this if you don't, but do you have any dimiclaude headcanons?

honestly I have... too many. it's kind of embarrassing. I'm working out the first draft of my obligatory go at the dmcl pre ts skip character study oneshot and so a lot of these are going to be related to how I'm trying to characterize them for that.

okay soooo starting off... I'm kind of obsessed with how they first meet? I think the library is a really common fan interpretation for obvious reasons and so it makes me think well... does this happen before or after we see them talking together in ch. 2? like that's SO early in the year and it doesn't really seem like a big deal (that they're together) until you realize the only other person either of them are "seen with" at the monastery are their retainers (this is true for edelgard too; though I think ferdinand is sometimes just hanging behind her lol??). like ?? it's just an interesting choice to put them together!! monastery placement is SO deliberate not just who people are with but where they are. I think about this little detail so much.

AND so then I start thinking well who approaches who? and why? and I kind of just get the sense that it's claude. I feel like dimitri just does not bridge gaps where there isn't a clear social code for him to fall back on or justify his desire to be close to or interact with people. for example, he's comfortable getting close to byleth b/c they're his professor and so he has a "reason" be around them and talking to them, etc. or think of the mercedes support chain which begins w/ him reminding her of a certification exam as her house leader (and then obviously goes from there). I think dimitri wants really desperately to reach out and connect to others but finds it difficult for a myriad of reasons? so he basically uses his position and responsibilities to try and answer to that desire without doing so "selfishly." I think dimitri (pre ts) sort of operates by the logic that any personal desire he has is selfish and therefore wrong? so he's always couching it in ways that make it acceptable? and why would it ever be acceptable to approach the attractive riegan heir?? simply bc he wants to?? and so claude is the one who approaches first. (sorry for the insanely long explanation for the most simple head canon. it will not get better from here lol)

anyways related to that I ALSO think claude either catches feelings first or at least realizes that's what they are first. I think dimitri is essentially vibrating with unresolved and insanely messy interpersonal trauma along with every other person he has a real history with (ingrid, dedue, felix, slyvain), so I get the sense that when dimitri crosses from oh this guy is just charming and conventionally attractive and nice to be around > legitimate romantic feelings or a desire to act on that attraction, I think he might just be like "oh yes this is what normal feelings of friendship feel like. between friends. which we now are. in a normal way." meanwhile claude is probably like. idk eight different types of horny and also like wait did I play myself?? am I falling for the prince of faerghus??? (yes.) (idk where I fall on how dimitri reacts to or conceptualizes sexual attration like. I don't think he's ignorant or naive or even a prude like people seem to suggest. he tell sylvain in their c support that the sex isn't a problem, it's the self destructive tendencies that accompany it (lol), so like ?? idk maybe he'd recognize sexual attraction BEFORE he realizes he catches feelings which is ?? really interesting as a thought and not often explored w/ dimitri or dmcl I think.)

how their relationship develops I think there's a lot of room for exploration. usually I'm not into ships that don't have a strong basis in canon interactions but dmcl is very different for me. I love how many different ways you can pair them up and watch them be messy and gentle and prickly and make mistakes and fall apart and come back together and just fall in love in general. I think their personalities are so well explored in canon and what we DO get in canon between them is such a strong foundation that it's easy to extrapolate into different plots/relationalities which make sense and feel true to both of them.

however, I do think that my favorite way of understanding their "get together" is that it's one of them sort of being brave enough/willing to take the risk because he (whoever it is) knows it is what they both want. like I feel like on the one hand dimitri's baggage disinclines him from being the one to make moves and "put himself out there" but at the same time I think he sort of sees any happiness/joy he might get as fleeting and just so, so finite, and that might push him toward it. I think dimitri's also willing to put himself out there when he realizes the other person is experiencing a similar sort of hesitance/inclination toward self-preservation (which I think claude does do in an interpersonal sense; he is SO cagey about getting close), so I could see dimitri being the first to act simply as an act of gentleness towards claude's own hesitance.

on the other hand, I think claude maybe just gets frustrated with playing we're obviously flirting but somehow not acknowledging it for however many moons straight and just decides to cross a dangerous bridge because he can and because he can be rather fond of risks (in dimitri's own words!!). also like.. there's no way he doesn't pick up on dimitri's self esteem issues or his reluctance to follow his own desire, so I could see claude making the first move as his own act of gentleness as well? but also I think you should be imagining this happening in the messiest way possible. because they're teenagers, and dimitri is kind of awkward and claude is kind of a brat and they're both stubborn, so I think it can be sweet but also cringe (in a good way).

once together I think they're a nightmare to be around by anyone who knows them because I think it's a "secret" but like probably the world's worst kept one in the sense that there's clearly SOMETHING going on there, even if not everyone is perceptive enough to pick up on "romance" necessarily. (idk it's probably essentially an "open secret" to anyone who's close to them actually. I think hilda and sylvain know without being told. I think felix somehow knows against his will. dedue probably picked up on dimitri's feelings before he did, etc). I don't think they're overtly coupley in any way, but I do think they sort of immediately develop some sort of "relationship code" (I hope this makes sense; it's something I sort of see with couples a lot?), and it just happens to make them insufferable. I think they probably operate on like a weird layering of in jokes/banter/stubbornness/genuine affection in such a way that it just repels other people LOL. and they don't even really realize it bc hey! they're not like kissing or touching or anything! but they're so annoying anyway <3

I feel like this is TOO much so I'm going to close with my silliest headcanon which is that dimitri, claude, and dedue all survive gronder on SS but separately and don't realize it. then they're all reunited in a series of improbable comedic errors and realize all their dreams are dead or completely out of reach or just not really applicable anymore (byleth is currently in dubstebland as we speak in this headcanon), and so they kind of just hop out of fodlan and decide to travel or something. and then ?? they end up in morfis which is by all accounts the equivalent to a modern city w/ like a electricity and modern conveniences and stuff and so they just stay and open like. idk the world's first cat cafe. this is now a coffee shop au. and then dimitri and claude get married. because of course. and then like in ten years flayn is doing her own romp around the world and stumbles across them and it's like the sweetest, strangest reunion any of them have ever had etc etc and so on and forth and idk why this au will not leave my mind but I think it's funny. so it won't. I just think about it and rotate it in my mind while also pretending I'm a serious connoisseur of character meta. the end fhdjfksd