@garlandgerard said: on the lorenz-dimitri thing, my girlfriend and i have an all-recruits post-AM AU where they do end up working together with lorenz as the head of house gloucester. theirs and claude's combined efforts also better the relationship between fódlan and almyra there

That’s basically my headcanon! I’ve also always liked the idea that since Lorenz has to work for the Empire out of concern for his land and people that the Kingdom army convinces him to join to get him out of there. Technically since Erwin is still the Count, they could play it off as Lorenz is fighting for the Kingdom now because of being forced to work for the Empire but Erwin isn’t on their side. For Erwin’s part all he has to do is stay neutral and not assist the Kingdom, and that way the Empire won’t be incited to attack Gloucester even if Lorenz is in the Kingdom army.

Also, I like how it’s only when you reach that chapter that Dimitri starts to waver in killing people he knows. It’s not until he’s faced with fighting Lorenz (and Ferdinand if you didn’t recruit him) that he starts being unable to really answer how he feels and why. I feel like even though he’s not really in his right mind, there’s still a rational part of him that knows Lorenz and Ferdinand aren’t bad people and have similar values to him. If you recruit Lorenz pre-timeskip he’s forced to leave you regardless so your army always has to fight him, and that’s the chapter where they start mentioning familiar faces in battle iirc.

I love the idea that the Kingdom army got him out of there and I also have this headcanon that he was offered the decision to stop fighting entirely and just go home (so that he wouldn’t risk an invasion from the Empire) but he chooses to fight because he’s not happy that he was forced into this war knowing if he didn’t fight for the Empire that he was risking danger to the people he protects in Gloucester. That would be when he plans to speak to his father and they make the plan for Erwin not to take up arms for either side while Lorenz is fighting for the Kingdom.

During that time I think Dimitri would see a lot of the good that Lorenz does, and we know from exploration that Dimitri does speak to people personally, such as Caspar saying he went to him and personally apologized about the Randolph situation. Caspar says he’d totally forgotten about it but he seemed happy all the same that Dimitri was getting better. I think Dimitri would have spoken to Lorenz a few times and maybe even gotten counsel from him.

When Claude goes back to Almyra, my headcanon is that Dimitri asks Lorenz to be in charge of the former Alliance territories and works closely with him to improve the lives of commoners. They’d also have Ferdinand helping and he’d be in charge of Adrestia. The former nobles from before any Crest system reforms could choose if they wanted to step down from their positions, but only after they found a suitable successor. Whoever the nobles were in each territory would work with either Dimitri, Lorenz or Ferdinand depending on where they lived to help improve Fodlan.