on one hand, idk how flayn might've helped in the breakdown dimitri had, other than maybe having more experience w the human condition bc she's longer-lived. On the other... I am choosing to find it hilarious that right after she temporarily leaves to go help seteth, the blue lions are confronted w how Not Okay dimitri and their general situation is... Lol
HAH YEAH. I think Flayn is a weird sort of character where she's halfway between the children and the adults. I think in some ways I felt as if she was auditing the classes. Still 100% a Blue Lion, but undoubtedly in a very different situation than the rest and coming from a very different place. Petra's the same - I wrote the two late joiners as very much having their own stories that intersect significantly with the BL. Dedue was here from the start, but I don't think he ever becomes actual friends with Ingrid, Sylvain, and Felix, so he entered the academy pretty isolated.
I didn't want to homogenize the characters and give them the exact same relationship with each other and the cult BL, so different characters absolutely put a lot of their identity into the cult (the kids who were childhood friends and the kids from broken homes, mostly) and others just have intersecting lives (the outsider kids). They all care for each other the same (for reasons I'll reveal next chapter which I personally think are VERY funny), but each character has a separate reason why they need the BL found family, and if they need it or just want it.
I don't think Flayn would have known how to help at the time. I think she would have been pretty frightened, but not devastated or terrified like a lot of the other BL. Her sense of self isn't tied up in Dimitri, unlike a lot of her classmates lol. But Flayn's relationship with Dimitri becomes important, and we'll see much more of it next chapter. Dimitri's relationships with everybody in the BL changes drastically once he gets severely sick. Again, we'll see more of it.
I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but we're done closely following the game. Part 1 basically set up why the big canon divergent thing happens, and then during the timeskip the big canon divergent thing happens and then Part 2 is absolutely different. Good news for readers unfamiliar with the game I guess lol. Thanks for the ask - I'm super looking forward to posting the next chapter!