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dmclemblems · 1 year

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if it's alright, can i ask why you like dimi/claude so much? like, the particular reasons you like them lol hope that doesn't come off as "how the hell do you like them" kind of thing

Yeee, tis fine! I feel like I’ll probably miss some of the reasons why I love them so much, but I’ll try to cover everything.

uh oh it got beeg

Things from the game itself:

I like that they hang out together sometimes (in the main story and in the DLC), when the lords don’t usually hang out together in their free time. Out of all the combinations of them, only Dimitri and Claude hang out together (with a story based exception during the DLC with Dimitri and Edelgard that never gets touched upon again even though it’s actually important and story relevant). There’s also the implication that they train/spar together in GD, with Dimitri saying “as ever” he has proven to be no match for Claude. During the “going to GM cutscene”, they’re walking together and talking together (a theme that Nintendo uses in their official art in almost every official of the three lords lmao).

Claude’s crest symbol is a moon, and Dimitri’s route is called Azure Moon (which is also coincidentally the only route they’re able to ally in because Dimitri dies in VW)

They’re a package deal in the game and in official art from Nintendo! Cipher promotions? Both of them got plastered on it together. The 2019 happy holidays artwork? Sitting down together while Edelgard is standing up (with Dimitri ??? staring at Claude with this oddly happy and dreamy look??? hey, Nintendo???). the artwork of Edelgard turning around while the lords are walking, but she’s behind the other two who are both walking together and talking? And... so on.

Another instance of “damn, how much time do you actually spend together where we aren’t aware of it” is Dimitri referring to Claude as his “friend” in the DLC to Aelfric. That point of the game is still very early on, but Dimitri doesn’t just toss the word “friend” around with everyone. He uses other terms like acquaintance, companion/companionship, etc. Rather than use any similar words for Claude, he just outright uses “friend”, and he doesn’t use that term unless he really believes it.

In the game itself, the start of it is Edelgard almost being killed and Byleth protects her, but with the other two nowhere to be seen for... some reason. When Edelgard is safe, suddenly they both come running up together and smile at each other like “lol sorry we got distracted by each other’s beauty but hey glad you’re both safe uwu”. Listen, it’s a tiny thing but WHEN IT ADDS up...!

Very cute moment for me when, if you’re playing GD, Dimitri takes a keen interest in Claude’s “schemes”. Most people consider his supposed schemes to be a bad thing and dread it openly. Dimitri is just out here like ooo tell me more, I wanna know!

During the mock battle, Claude tries to tease him and fails miserably. By the time of the actual Battle of the Eagle and Lion (and Deer, wah wah), Dimitri is used to Claude’s teasing and jokes with him! Instead of a deadpan response where he just doesn’t know Claude well enough to know how he behaves, this time Dimitri is used to him and responds to him with a more “lol okay Claude” vibe. It’s much more apparent in the JP dialogue that he’s aware Claude is teasing/joking, but he goes along with it.

There’s a bit more of a rivalry between Dimitri and Edelgard, oddly. Even this early, he’s seeing her as more of an adversary (maybe to foreshadow, since the BotEaL had a boatload of foreshadowing) and seeing it as a more serious competition. With Claude, he’s much more relaxed and seeing their battle as more of a test of skill and mutual gain to learn from. He says he will “happily” battle Claude and urges him not to hold back. In contrast, he tells Edelgard that the thought of fighting her is “troubling at best” and is bothered by her “joke” (Claude jokes with him too and he’s much more receptive. Edelgard’s “joking” was more foreshadowing, but he doesn’t take well to it and that same joke/response happens again after the battle too). The direction of both conversations is the polar opposite, and he doesn’t feel at ease when fighting her.

Following that, his relationship with Edelgard is tense, and it’s a huge contrast to how he feels around Claude. That is, notably, whenever him and Edelgard interact there’s a wall between them (such as when she’s walking by with Manuela, going to their mission, and her and Dimitri have a misunderstanding that ends in a tense ending to their conversation) Due to their circumstances, their relationship is pretty rocky even during the first half of the game in BL. Throughout the first half of the game, this aspect of their relationship is static (until of course he finds out her identity as the Flame Emperor and it just goes downhill from there). Then we have him and Claude, where starting at the mock battle, Dimtiri misses Claude’s silly behavior and is more serious about the battle as mentioned before. Over time though he’s obviously learned what Claude is like, and during the official battle you can clearly see a difference in Dimtiri’s overall attitude when he hears Claude joke with him. This time he knows what to expect and is receptive to Claude’s behavior, going along with it and being glad to have this battle with him. His demeanor toward Edelgard, however, doesn’t change at all. He still doesn’t like the idea of fighting her seriously, nor takes well to her “jokes” and yet seems to see her as more of an adversary to overcome. Around Claude, Dimtiri has more friendly vibes in both their routes and is pretty open to learning about Claude and talking to him casually.

Kind of a small instance but with a little more meaning to me?: them fighting side by side at Garreg Mach when the Empire invades. Dimitri was in his Very Nutty state, and even more so if you’re playing BL. He’s so out of it that Dedue has to direct everyone in his place. Due to the BLs knowing what he’s going through, you’d think at least one of them would be keeping an eye on him during the battle. Instead, it’s Claude he’s fighting alongside! Dimitri was very expressive about wanting to be the one to reach Edelgard in that battle, but the cutscene shows him with Claude, rather than rushing for Edelgard.

Gronder! Even though Dimitri gives out his famous, stolen-from-Miklan-because-Miklan-said-it-first-and-apparently-inspired-Dimitri-to-use-it-later-in-life line, “kill every last one of them”, his actual dialogue with Claude is very different from that (on both routes). All he says is that he wants Claude to move and has no time to talk. If he meant it that he really wanted to kill people from the Alliance or didn’t care about Claude as a person, he would have tried to run him down for getting in his way. Claude even said he wouldn’t budge, which normally would prompt Dimtiri at that point to attack him and kill him to get him out of the way. In AM Claude retreats when defeated, but Dimitri lets him escape and doesn’t mind at all that he’s fleeing. Because of that you can specifically clarify that Dimitri doesn’t think of him as an enemy, because he chases enemies down and kills them at that point (remember all those dead soldiers we were hearing about early into the timeskip?). When Edelgard tries to escape, Dimitri doesn’t just let her go without attempting to follow her. This clarifies that he sees her as an enemy, because again, he’ll chase down anyone considers his enemy. When Claude left, even though he can intentionally stand in Dimitri’s way, Dimitri won’t kill him even though he probably could.

When Claude requests aid, he doesn’t ask for Byleth’s help. He doesn’t ask for Seteth or the Church’s help (which is working with Byleth/the Kingdom and the direct enemies of the Empire). He asks for the Kingdom’s aid. This Dimitri centric view continues through all of chapter 19, with him specifically believing in Dimitri and his mentality.

Hurray Failnaught! Normally characters give their Relics to Byleth (for game mechanic/convoy purposes), but Claude gives him specifically to Dimitri. Since he plans to leave Fodlan and return to Almyra where they don’t fight with these weapons, he likely feels he has no reason to bring it with him. Instead, he leaves it with someone he trusts both with his family heirloom and Fodlan itself. Claude doesn’t trust easily, but he had faith that Dimitri would finish the war and restore Claude’s second home.

In the same chapter, Claude... somehow knows a LOT about Dimitri. Obviously he learned everything offscreen and we don’t know how or why, but not only does he know that Dimitri can still be reasoned with (Teach will talk and he’ll listen), suggesting that he’s aware that the person Dimitri was is not gone despite the meeting they had in Gronder, but during the “here have my family heirloom” scene, he tells Dimitri that the dead cling to them without regard for their own/the living’s lives. During the Academy phase we don’t have any indication that he knows what’s going on with Dimitri... but then, I recall them fighting side by side during the invasion of the monastery, so perhaps Claude started to put the pieces together if he was able to see the state Dimitri was in. Canon? Not necessarily, but it’s something I consider when I want to answer why Claude knows this stuff about Dimitri when Dimitri didn’t tell him about it.

Yes, Teach will talk and he’ll listen, but by then Dimitri had already made the decision to help the Alliance- er, well, Claude. The Alliance itself? Hm. Claude? Yes, let’s go help Claude-- er, the Alliance, he means! The Alliance! But... but also Claude! Okay, I’m kind of joking. Kind of. A lil bit. By which I mean, Dimitri is very vocal about saving Claude more than he is the Alliance. Leave the latter part to Lorenz, I guess. It’ll make him happy and that would make me happy!

So, on the topic of him already making the decision to go aid Claude, not only was Claude correct, but Dimitri literally went to begin their march to the Alliance the next day after they recaptured their own capital. They celebrated and then the very next day he’s like “uh yeah sorry for this guys, but Claude wants our help so we’re leaving. Now. Pack your things. If you’re not ready in ten I’m leaving without you. Claude needs help.” I’M JOKING. Mostly. A lil bit.

They reach the battle destination and Dimitri is uh, very specific that “they will not let Claude die”. He only recently came out of his nommy nom, chewy enemies state, and he’s already over here like hell nah we ain’t lettin’ Claude die. I didn’t spare him at Gronder for nothin’. Let’s go, let’s go!

Claude, who he doesn’t know nearly as well as the BLs, “crosses too many dangerous bridges for his liking”. For sure, Claude does some risky things, but he’s not someone who is within Dimitri’s immediate friend group. All the same, Dimitri worries about him (a lot in this chapter, too) and expresses that he doesn’t like Claude taking these kind of risks (that could endanger his life).

“This must be one of your jokes”. Not sure Claude was ever really one to often make jokes that we know of? The way it’s phrased, “one of your jokes”, sounds like more of an inside thing? As in, “I know you well enough to know you behave like this”, kind of thing. Doesn’t sound like much, until I start adding up all the times they’re together/talking to each other. For reference, times such as ones I’ve mentioned in this post (walking to GM with Byleth between them and Edelgard, if you’re playing GW Dimitri implies he’s sparred with Claude and uses “as ever” as if to say it happens often enough that it’s a familiar result, them hanging out during their free time after the mock battle, them fighting side by side during the invasion of GM even though Dimitri insisted he was going to basically rush the battle and ker-slice Edelgard’s head off and show up at Enbarr with it in hand...) Suddenly it doesn’t seem so odd that they might know each other a little bit more than the story that we get to see lets on. Even if it was small talk, enough of that and enough sparring/fighting alongside each other would add up enough for them to start learning things about each other.

Kudos to Dimitri for being the only person in the game that gets a pet name from Claude. Teach is just a casual way of saying “professor”, and “princess” is literally what Edelgard is. Princeliness is... Quite A Title I Guess. “Princess” is dropped and Claude refers to Edelgard as just Edelgard in the timeskip, but Dimtiri gets a nickname update! Now he’s “Kingliness” instead!

Some Hopes ones (I shipped them way before Hopes was a thing but these made me happy!):

Background similarities! In Hopes if you play AG, they talk very early on (before the timeskip) about Dimitri’s life after the Tragedy. To sum it up, he was being targeted by his own family with murder attempts and he was very isolated (one NPC describes it as nearly being like house arrest with how isolated he was). Even if you don’t consider Hopes to be too much canon with its character background lore, the isolation part checks because in Houses, Dimitri says he didn’t have any friends left after the Tragedy. He only had Dedue for companionship after that in the castle itself, unable to see his other friends as often due to them living in different territories.

Another similarity from Your Hopes Truly is Dimitri being paranoid on expeditions. As he puts it, he “can't help but peer over his shoulder lest an assassin lodges his blade in his back”. He’s literally paranoid of assassins... a lot like how Claude sleeps with a knife under his pillow. :’( They both worry a lot about having to be vigilant because they could die at any time. Even though Edelgard is also royalty, her trauma expresses itself differently and she doesn’t worry about assassins as outwardly (possible also because she has Hubert around, who would be more likely to catch assassins lurking around than the people around Dimitri and Claude). I’m sure she knows people will be after her because she’s royalty, but she doesn’t worry about it in the same way.

This one is more recent and Hopes based, but in AG the game decides to be Big Dumb and is like “nobody in the BL house trusts Claude... for some... reason...” but Dimitri is gung ho adamant that they can trust Claude. His portrait even switches to his smiling portrait! “I’ve never known him to be a liar” despite how little time they had together at the Academy in this game is a big amount of trust imo.

On the same note, AG is like a mirror of AM’s chapter 19! Claude trusts Dimitri and that he will show up to help. In AG, they need the Alliance’s help and Dimitri trusts Claude to show up without question. When the Alliance shows up and Claude isn’t there, he wonders where Claude is, and when Claude does show up being the smart little sneaky not-literal-bastard-because-he’s-actually-a-legitimate-child bastard he is, Dimitri is like :D I knew you would come no matter what. This man literally implicitly trusts Claude. Sounds like someone had a crush when they were younger... Now his crush is helping them and he’s all bubbly and excited inside... uwu... uwu... UWU...

More Hopes stuff despite the bad writing moments. In SB, Claude confronts Edelgard because they were so focused on locating Rhea that they didn’t even consider Dimitri’s motivations for being part of that battle. His portrait is even his upset portrait for them “not even sparing a thought for Dimitri’s motivations”, in his exact words. He’s not all too happy that they were so determined by their goal that they didn’t consider Dimitri, specifically.

Similarly, if you get the Arval chapter, Dimtiri worries for Claude’s safety if Claude tries to take the Church out of power. Despite that Dimitri lists off reasons why That’s A Really Fucking Bad Idea, he also includes that he doesn’t want Claude to be in danger, and their discussion ultimately ends with Claude saying “you really are too good for me!”. Claude, that’s sus.

Not game specific, but motivated by the contents of the game:

Claude is a very casual person, and Dimtiri wants that in his relationships (of any kind). Actually, he repeatedly asks people to be casual with him and doesn’t want to be treated like a prince. In no way does Claude treat him like a prince and just treats him exactly the way Dimtiri would prefer, without even having to be asked to do so. This is part of what makes me wonder if the reason Dimitri is so receptive to Claude and why they bounce so well off each other’s personalities, despite seeming so different in demeanor, is because Dimitri experiences those kind of informal exchanges with him that most others won’t grant him.

More often than not, even in GD, Claude expresses being an outsider. That means that even though the people around him are mostly/generally pretty chill with him (i.e. his GD classmates just treat him like another classmate and not the foreigner in the class), he still doesn’t feel totally accepted there. Likely, it’s the little things he picks up about them, such as Hilda’s negative comments about Almyra. They’re pretty chill together, but he’s Almyran, and royalty at that, yet she doesn’t know that. For him, that could be like, okay so she’s one of the people I proooobably should definitely not tell my identity to, like, ever. I’m not saying Hilda specifically is the only person he would have to be wary of, but the problem is still there.

On the other hand, Dimitri... literally does not give a fuck who is a foreigner and who is not. More than anyone else besides, equally, Claude, he pushes to have people from other lands seen as equals to those in Fodlan and wants them to be just as accepted.

Also, Claude’s post timeskip advice box:

What did these two do, share notes? Pass notes in class? Skip class and hang out in the bathroom while they skipped?

To be specific, Dimitri highlights all aspects that Claude guns for too. He hates that he’s been hated all his life for his lineage and never saw it as fair. Dimitri wouldn’t see that as fair either. Claude doesn’t think his lineage or bloodline matters when it comes to being accepted and what relationships he has. That’s also Dimitri’s line of thinking when he insists he doesn’t want to be treated as a prince. He just wants normal relationships. This also applies to Crests, where in which he doesn’t believe having or not having one should decide a person’s, well, anything.

Being two races, Claude has struggled to feel accepted on either side. Meanwhile, Dedue has struggled a lot to get by in Garreg Mach because of the prejudice against Duscur’s people. Even if some of the people of Duscur did do what everyone accused them of, they’re dragging those accusations well beyond that and treating Dedue as if he had anything to do with it. In Dimitri’s B support with Dedue, he makes it extremely clear to his own soldiers that he’ll have nothing to do with that behavior. He sees Dedue as another human being, as he would anyone else. Even though most characters don’t care what race someone is, most of them don’t actively try to fight for justice for other races of people being mistreated in Fodlan. Dimitri is one of the only people who will walk up to someone and tell them to fuck off for being racist, and mind you, if this wasn’t a T rated game and more explicit curse words were allowed to be used, I am quite positive Dimitri would quite literally tell those people to fuck off. He acts all upstanding and polite, but he’d also curse at someone who deserves it and is definitely angry enough to be a semi-big curser lol.

Both of them discuss faith with Byleth, too. While Claude doesn’t like the idea of praying to gods and often talks about how he isn’t in with the whole Sothis religion, Dimitri says the same thing, basically. In his Goddess Tower conversation, he expresses his feelings about “the goddess”, and it pretty much equals that he couldn’t give a flying fuck about her because she doesn’t help those in need despite supposedly watching over their land. He feels that she’ll watch and do nothing to help, not even reach out a hand to people who need her. Dimitri firmly does not believe in the religion that Fodlan follows, even despite literally being the crown prince of a nation that was legitimatized by Rhea herself. Neither of them care about Fodlan’s religion personally, but they both accept people who do and don’t badmouth her in front of devout followers. For example, Claude talks to Ignatz about the goddess and jokes with him. He doesn’t try to tell Ignatz he’s wrong for being faithful to a goddess that Claude himself doesn’t believe in. Dimitri doesn’t care about the Seiros faith at all, but he’s very friendly with Seteth and on great terms with him (especially in Hopes! They’re very close in AG!). Even if Seteth personally is not very devout (which is actually the truth), he’s still Rhea’s second in command. You also have people like Mercedes, who are extremely if not almost excessively devout, but Dimitri never puts her down for that. That’s how Claude is with Ignatz, and Ignatz is very devout. Basically, both Dimitri and Claude hate the idea of believing in the goddess of Fodlan, but they never judge someone who does believe in that very goddess. In fact, after Duscur, I’m sure Dimitri felt he could never forgive the goddess for not saving his father, Glenn and all the others who died there. Even if she wasn’t from a goddess of Duscur, she didn’t even attempt to save Fodlan’s people, at the very very least. It’s not a surprise in that sense that Dimitri isn’t devout.

In the case of ideologies, both of them even use the exact same word here. No matter what someone believes or thinks should happen, no matter how people think lands should be managed, neither of them feel like that’s cause to judge someone. They both feel that people can have different ways of thinking no matter how vast those ways of thinking might be, and still get along just fine.

This basically sums up both of what they want tbh, and it’s something they both strive for as early as the first half of the game.

Other aspects I love:

Other than that, I like to think about their personalities too! They’ve been through a lot of the same things and have a lot of the same feelings, so I think they would understand really well how to help each other. While Claude doesn’t think he deserves the treatment he gets, Dimitri tends to think he deserves all sorts of bad things. I feel like Claude could teach Dimitri to care about himself more and to stop thinking so poorly about himself. For Claude, I think he’d have “might get killed at any moment” ingrained into him, but I think he’d feel safe around Dimitri but also accepted and loved. Dimtiri is extremely straightforward and honest, and I think Claude would know for a fact that he can trust that Dimitri is honest about his feelings. He wouldn’t have to question if Dimitri actually loves him and if he secretly hates that he’s half Almyran. Because of how Dimitri has always been, I don’t think he’d actually worry about that and any worry that might nag him in passing he’d be able to tell himself is only a paranoid habit.

Also, Almyra loves strength! Pretty sure if Claude walked back into Almyra with a 6′2 superhuman-strength Blaiddyd on his arm that Almyra would be, to say the least, impressed lol. Not only would Dimitri be on par with their strongest generals, but if he got the attention of royalty, regardless of their feelings on that royalty, I think they’d have to take notice. I have headcanons about how the Almyran children would love learning from Dimitri and eventually run around pretending to be as strong as him when he starts helping them train. 🥺 Most of the adults wouldn’t like Dimitri at first because he’s from Fodlan, and even more than that a royal form Fodlan, but I think they’d come around after seeing how much the kiddos respect him and how kind he is to them. Even if they were meh about him being with Claude, I think they would start to respect Dimitri as an individual and not only appreciate when he’s around, but enjoy having him there for competitions, because Dimitri also loves being competitive and training.

You also get the silly opposites aspect with their homelands! Claude would be freezing in Faerghus, especially Fhirdiad. You know he’d be stealing all the blankets and be a Claude burrito by morning. Dimitri would have to accommodate him with lots of warm clothes because poor Claude would be shivering in full armor! It gives lots of room for cuddles and snuggies tho!!! !!! !!! 6′2 warm man and lots of blankets means lots of warmth and comfy sleep zzzzz...

Then you have Dimitri in Almyra and he hates hot weather (specifically, hates, so he says in an advice box letter). Claude would have to tend to him to keep him cool, sure, but I think Dimitri would whine a lot about the heat and I think it’d be rly cute and I think Claude would also think so. He’d have to bring Dimitri to the sea to let him stay in the water for a while, and then struggle to get him out of the water.

Something else I like to consider is how Dimitri would probably love to learn Almyran since he’s bilingual as it is, and I feel like he’d love to learn their culture and whatnot as well. Like I said, he’s really big on people from different places mingling, and he’s been trying really hard to get Duscur to be seen as an intendent land again. In Hopes, he’s trying to fix relations with Sreng (which Claude even considers Sreng in VW when mentioning his dream in full toward the end of the game). Getting to learn about Almyra would be something I feel that Dimitri would love experiencing.

Personality wise Dimitri’s a lot more on the formal speaking side, but they can absolutely both joke and be little shits! I’d love to see them banter with each other because they both have it in them. In fact, I think it would lead to lots of laughs and silly times and I think after everything, they both really need that!

tap tap am i missing something am i missing anything from this fic-sized essay tap tap my cat was staring at me for at least 50% perfect of this. i mean, straight up just staring and watching me from my bed and i just think that’s something i should share

OH YEAH I also love the interracial aspect because it really drives home their desire about race and everyone getting along. 🥰

Also, I feel like Claude needs someone he can really, truly trust and Dimitri needs someone who can make him really start to care about and respect himself again.

#DimiClaude #i feel like seeing my final wordcount paragraphs etc is like the tense bgm on shows like am3rican 1d0l #(excuse the numbers in the words there I just want to avoid it getting into that search keyword lol)#when the viewers are waiting for a tense moment to resolve and you don't know what's gonna happen next kind of thing #that's gonna be the bgm playing for y'all when you click on the read more and then 51 paragraphs come rolling out #like opening one of those decorations where you open it and the bottom rolls out #and everyone's faces are S1m0n C0w3ll during a really bad performance when y'all see how long the post is #fr how many ppl are gonna actually read this whole thing without mostly skimming 😂#the first section for what's actually event canon in the game is bullet point listed #that i at least wanted to be neater looking bc my ocd would be like ewwww this is all over the place #final wordcount was over 4.5k btw-#DCE Ask

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