In Which I Gush About Dusk Lanverlais
(If you just want a basic rundown of him, you can check this post instead. You can also read incoherent rambles about his background, his husband, and of course, the duck.)
Looking over what I posted about my alts, I was sort of amused to realize that I didn't talk nearly as much about my main dude, Dusk. Probably because I'm afraid if I start, I will never stop.
Because I love this silly man, very much.
He wasn't supposed to be my main guy, you know. I made him because I found it interesting the elezen look strange. Their proportions are off, compared to actual humans. They've got those necks, of course, but their shoulders are also a little too broad, their limbs a little too long, their head can sometimes look a little too small.
It was a touch offputting, if I'm honest, although I appreciated that this awkwardness went for both genders. I've said to people that I appreciate that FFXIV did 'androgynous elves' in a way that wasn't just code for 'the dudes are a little bit feminine.' When they're in armor, especially heavy armor, the gender line is pretty blurred to my eyes. And I think they have a ton of leeway to lean really hard into a gender presentation they want, or to hang out somewhere in the middle, or swing wildly from one to the other, and it always looks 'right' for them in a way that can be difficult (but not impossible!) for the other races in this game. They're just elezen, and I like it a lot.
This is me holding back on gushing about other things I've come to love about them, by the way.
In any case, like I said, I found their proportions a little offputting and strange, but that made them intriguing. Could I make an elezen I liked looking at? Turned out I could.
This is the earliest picture I can find of him that I still have. I have no idea where he's at in his MSQ, but I do know this was his very first glam.
Dusk comes from the same place Errol and Mercuriel do, a long lost RP setting I explored with a friend for a long time. It's why he's named 'Dusk' instead of something more elezen-y, although in FFXIV it's a nickname given to him by his father (and his twin sister, of course, is nicknamed Dawn). In that setting, he was a misplaced hippie artist at the head of a free love commune in the post apocalypse. He was a sculptor, and the eccentric local warlord was his patron, which enabled him to have his commune of would-be artists in the first place.
I wasn't sure he'd translate well to this setting (I thought this about the other two, too), but his actual personality - golden retriever given human form - didn't just translate, it fit into the way the Warrior of Light is frequently portrayed beautifully. Dusk has always had tremendous amounts of love to give to people - whatever form they want from him, platonic or otherwise - and has always made friends easily. He loves to learn about people more than anything else, but he loves seeing and doing new things almost as much.
He's more resilient than people ever expect, because he's always so soft, caring and open. It comes across as naive a lot of the time, but he's not. He just made the choice to be trusting and loving in a world that seems to often punish that, because living any other way is no way to live at all, in his eyes. He refuses to let the world make him jaded.
He's brave and protective - within reason, he is ever mindful of people's boundaries - and wants to help. Always, no matter how big or small the problem he's being asked to help with is. He's stubborn about being who he is, stubborn in his optimism, stubborn about giving pieces of himself to anyone who wants it.
So yeah. Translated better than I could ever hope.
When I first came up with him, it was sort of to counterbalance Mercuriel and Errol, both extremely messy men. I wanted Dusk to be simple, to be the one who was somehow always okay, because of the love he surrounded himself with. And so he was, in the RP. Partly because I didn't RP him and only him, he was offscreen a lot.
The WoL is never offscreen. So there are cracks here and there, now. Dusk wouldn't dream of not being the Warrior of Light, if people want him to be, even though he wishes people would see him more as himself than a Heroic Hero That Heroes, and that they would more often remember he has a huge support network that helps him do what he does. And frankly, it IS a lot of a pressure and he HAS gone through an awful lot as a result.
Dusk doesn't seem, on the surface, to be someone who would be a dark knight. He's so fluffy! And he's not resentful about being labeled a hero at all! And it's true, he really isn't. He might get exasperated sometimes, but nothing too crazy. But when he picked the class up, there were so many events he hadn't had a chance to unpack, to feel his feels and come to terms with them. And self-care is not a thing for him, it doesn't occur to him until people make it occur to him. Fray, to put it mildly, made it occur to him. Myste did too.
The Stormblood DRK quests felt especially suited to him ... he's not resentful, but he does carry a lot of guilt. So many people he couldn't save, in spite of his best efforts. So much hurt he wishes he could've prevented earlier, or entirely. So many people he was set against, that he might've been able to come to an understanding with if there had been time to find it, who didn't survive meeting him because of it.
He's better now, and I like to think that's why he's left the class behind ... but not completely. It's like riding a bike for him, letting his strong emotions, his love for the people he wants to protect, his disregard for rules designed to stop him from doing that ... it all comes rushing back to make him back into the absurdly resilient, dangerous protector of people who cannot protect themselves.
Gunbreaker is good and all, but sometimes you need to tap into something deeper, I suppose.
Pfft, I was going to make this his backstory post, but it got away from me, talking more about what he is instead of what he's done. I think that's okay though.
Oh, another thing he is? A giant insomniac.
And that, friends, is what tilted me towards wildwood over duskwight. Wildwoods look exhausted, all the time. It's perfect and I love it.
I will frequently comment that he looks like there is not a single thought passing through his skull. I've decided it's a combination of things that make this happen. First, the sleep deprivation. Second, he does frequently indulge in fogweed, partly in the hopes it will help him sleep, partly because he is self-medicating all the anxiety he refuses to acknowledge exists because again, self-care is not a thing for him a lot of the time. And third, his brain never shuts the fuck up. He doesn't have no thoughts, he has all the thoughts.
He's also ... startled a lot. Which I love so much.
Don't let the lack of glasses fool you, he wears them all the time now. I just didn't start doing it reliably until after he finished Shadowbringers, and I'm avoiding posting Endwalker shots of him at the moment.
Okay, see what I mean? I got started, and I have rambled about this dude AT LENGTH. This isn't even close to as much as I COULD say about him, either! But I will stop here instead of actually talking about his 'lore,' and try to make things more, uh, bite-sized going forward. Thank God I found the 'read more' link option thing, am I rite?
