i would like to ask you about your cf defector sylvain thoughts 👀
oh man so i have a LOT of feelings about sylvain in general but especially about cf!sylvain. it's always kind of annoyed me that so much sylvain content is just...shipping him with felix/ingrid/dimitri because there's a wealth of potential in sylvain and i think a lot of it gets wasted
part of this stems from me...really just not liking him with the other blue lions! i suppose they're alright as friends with a lot of shared history and trauma, but especially pre-timeskip i think that sylvain's relationship with a lot of the other blue lions is. kind of toxic ngl! i also think it's really telling that sylvain ONLY gets to a b-support with dimitri and it's a pretty surface-level friendship (here we go, more jokes about sylvain being horny when his flirtiness likely stems from trauma!)
but also i think there's a lot of potential to just. let the horror build up in sylvain over time. it starts off with him seeing what becomes of miklan, someone he's come to hate but at the same time can't help but pity. and it doesn't help that even when he's skipping meals and suffering sleepless nights on account of the guilt that tears at his stomach, he brushes it all off as a joke, because he's learned that it's easier to pretend he doesn't care. felix can glare daggers at him and ingrid can roll her eyes and dimitri can sit there with a blank smile on his face when he jokes, because at least it means he doesn't have to say that he's struggling.
but of course that builds up into a lot of sadness and distancing himself and maybe even a little bit of resentment over time, and then shit goes down in the holy tomb and now all of a sudden dimitri is going fucking WILD in a way that sylvain always kind of suspected he might, and things get very very real very very quickly and now sylvain can no longer pretend that he's slowly been pushing the others away. and when he hears dimitri mirror miklan's murderous line so closely, he just can't take it any more. he leaves. he goes to edelgard and while he doesn't trust her or agree with everything she says and the things she wants to do make him sick to his stomach sometimes, he just can't be around the lions anymore. deep down he misses his late night talks with mercedes and sneaking tastes of dedue's cooking before it's done, and he can't even think of what the look in ingrid's or felix's eyes when they see him again will be like without wanting to cry, but at least with the imperial army he doesn't have to look at dimitri anymore and try to pretend he doesn't see his brother.
plus there's a lot of potential to think about with whether you think edelgard's or dimitri's army would win in the end....is byleth with the black eagles? does sylvain stand at their side and wonder whether the emptiness behind their eyes is better or worse than the frenzy behind dimitri's? do his hands shake when he's the one who has to silence annette's song, or break his childhood promise to felix? does he look on in horror when he sees dedue turn into a beast, just like miklan did, or can he even watch it happen? does he even hope to make it through the war, or does he silently wish that dimitri will succeed where miklan didn't? what becomes of sylvain when the war is over and the battle is won? does anyone know? is there anyone left to care?
or is byleth on the side of the blue lions? does sylvain have to watch as the army he's chosen crumbles around him? is he afraid as it happens, or is there some hint of relief? is he surprised when edelgard too becomes something worse, more bestial, even than dimitri or miklan? does he put up a fight against the people he once called his friends, or does he go to them like a ram to the altar? who is given the deed of taking out sylvain, the reckless philanderer who once lived down the hall and sometimes surprised them with the depth of his thoughts? is it felix, his eyes filled with rage and grief? is it ingrid, whose lips tremble as the blood runs down his chest? is it dimitri, shuddering like an animal at the sight of him? or is it mercedes, who holds him to her chest and wipes the tears and blood from his face? is it dedue, with the efficiency of a butcher and the kindness to make it quick? do any of them remember him when he's gone? do any of them want to?
there's a lot of tragedy to be had there, regardless of whether edelgard wins or loses, and i think the parallel of miklan and dimitri is something that should have bothered sylvain a lot more than it did.