#anyway claude didn't get a hug and im still angry abt it four years later

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

okay hear me out tho i'm gonna tell u this is sad and why

your bond with someone goes deeper than family? family is, unless something is really wrong between family members, supposed to be one of the instinctually strongest bonds humans have (like why mama bears are a thing lol - even to their unborn children! by default, they love their child even if said child isn't even out of the womb yet! also why toxic family relationships are so complicated, because "it's still my [family member]"). like, by default, there's a bond (usually between immediate family members, i.e. extended family is not necessarily by default depending on interaction and frequency of interacting).

that can change, but things have to happen for it to change. there have to be actions involved to put a strain on that relationship. someone has to do something to lessen the bond or to sever it entirely (i.e. if someone has a bad relationship with their family, it's almost always due to issues that popped up throughout their lives).

from what we know about claude's family, uhhhh... you know, yeah, i'd say his relationship to his entire family is pretty shitty. aside from having siblings who were making active assassination attempts on him when he was a child, his parents sure as shit didn't care enough to make him feel loved or to even bother really trying to protect him. they basically left him to fend for himself when he was "old enough" because he needed to know how to watch his own back, yadda yadda... but for a child they don't need to be learning how to survive that shit alone.

if he was nearly killed, his parents should have hugged him and cried out of fear and worry, but he was left to patch himself up and get back up. children shouldn't have to go through that (unless it's a special circumstance like their parents are dead/captive/missing/etc). claude thinks his bond with someone he just met basically a year ago is more important than family he's known his entire life.

also, just saying "now that we know each other" isn't a very high standard. you can know someone and still not truly be connected, but he's been so starved for bonds his entire life that just generally knowing a person feels more meaningful to him. that's not to discount the bond he's feeling, but that the way he phrases it makes it comes across as this is the best he's ever had. mind you, at this point byleth has mainly just been a teacher to him. there wasn't all that much bonding - especially where claude was concerned, because he didn't really open up to byleth for most of that year.

generally speaking i do dislike the way byleth is propped up so damn hard in vw at claude's constant expense, and i think this may have been one example among many, but i do also think it's a case of byleth just generally treating him better than what he's known. even when he came to fodlan, he wasn't trusted among the nobility and was still kind of on his own. he used byleth, disregarded byleth's feelings, and wasn't open about himself in any way with byleth for the majority of the year.

like, that's all it takes for his heart to be connected to someone? knowing someone for a year or so who doesn't want to kill him and is generally kind to him?

i know claude's upbringing as per his relationship with his parents (affection wise) wasn't as god awful as shinon fire emblem "my mother never hugged me" my love, but they definitely went well beyond "tough love" and it shows. :'(

a bond with someone can certainly be more than family, but most times if someone is on good terms with family, they would treat those relationships equally, i.e. not putting the friendship ahead of the family. that kind of things means someone has reason to not see them equally and that the family has done something (or they have done something, but in claude's case it's the family who did something) to make them feel trust toward someone else more.

the fact that claude's parents not only didn't give him enough love but actively did things to him (or supported it by not stopping it - yeah looking at you Tiana) probably really did put cracks in his trust and feelings with his family. like, with the information we have about his parents, i don't even know if they'd be sad if he was killed.

would they feel insulted that someone took the life of royalty? probably, yeah... but i don't know that they'd feel all that sad about it, regardless of what uwu three hopes wants us to think about claude being the favorite child, because if he is then that means the king is absolute trash to all his children. if that's how he treats his favorite child? like forget it, no wonder shahid grew up to be a pile of stinky horse dung.

posting this in 2023. still angry claude hasn't been properly hugged. vicious and feral that little baby boy claude was suffering and not getting hugs and snuggies and crawling around in blankets.

ima be honest with you, i don't really even remember his grandfather doing much of anything for him/with him/showing particular care and/or love toward him and his grandfather was still better to him than anyone else in his entire blood family.