#drk. am I right

[tovaicas]

postmortem.

any pronouns

[lucien-aventine]

Tank + Healer

[demigod-of-the-agni]

Forgive me, forgive me. I ask, I beg, I pray, but it never comes.

You know I find it incredibly bewildering to see just how much kalki reflects myself in him like YEAH Duh of course he does, he’s my little guy it’s like his full time job. But at the same time he is a fully functional facet of my being and he is at the mercy of my whimsies, and whatever he discovers in his arduous journey of self realisation is ultimately a reflection of what I discover in the real world. It’s also incredibly funny because ffxiv lore for dark knights is really baked into the idea of (re)discovering yourself amongst the bloodshed and continuing to live and love and thrive despite the world working against us. who would have thought such a raw message could come from an mmorpg side quest about edgy emo boys of all places

also adamantite armour of fending i would lay down my LIFE for u

variant + phone bg version + ID below the cut

tch as if you guys are actually going to use artwork of my little guy as your phone background. i know. how dumb. let a girl dream. i should make an alternate version but it's of Fray and Myste

[START ID: A picture with a red background focusing on the character's bust that is placed to the left of the image's centre. He is coloured with a dark blue overlay, contrasting with the red background. He has brown skin, long black hair that falls over his shoulders, and is wearing blue and gold armour and earrings. He is looking at the viewer, right eye dark brown and the left an glowing unnatural red, with an expression that looks determined and angry and yet bitter and forlorn. In the foreground and on the right side of the piece, a miniature version of the character stands coloured in a light blue overlay and wearing the same blue and gold armour, looking as if he is glowing. He is facing towards the left of the piece, or perhaps at the character bust, his expression unreadable. Above the miniature character's head is the symbol representing the FFXIV dark knight, coloured in gold. END ID.]

[acaciapines]

Please tell us abt the parallels :o

YEAH OKAY SO!!!!

in this au (and as i write ralsei in my canon always lol) the biggest thing that puts pressure on ralsei's life is the prophecy--it says a human, a monster, and a prince from the dark, and because it is a prophecy, and it is fate, is HAS to be true, and ralsei, as a darkner, a group of people who literally exist below the lightners, is charged with bringing this prophecy into fruition. she has spent her entire life ALONE, with nothing but this prophecy for comfort, saying that one day, ONE DAY, she'll get through this and she'll have friends. but yknow, that weighs on a person! its heavy and terrible and she has contorted herself to fit what fate tells her she must be.

and then for noelle, the big thing putting pressure on her? her dead siblings (dess and kris. kris isnt technically her sibling but yknow for ease of language thats what i use. also we know they arent dead but noelle and the rest dont). with their deaths means noelle is now the baby of the family, a family that is shaped by this great gaping grief noelle cannot comprehend, because when dess and kris died she was young enough she barely remembers them beyond like, maybe half-formed memories but she isnt sure if those are real or just what people have told her. shes expected to be grieving her dead siblings but really she just sort of. hates them a little bit. for going off and dying and now her mom and toriel are super overprotective of her, and she knows its her fault asriel never left to go to college and hasnt even left hometown, and its just. its rough.

so both noelle and ralsei have these Huge things that have defined their lives that neither of them want, but. too bad! WHICH LEADS TO EVEN MORE PARALLELS. slash foils lol.

because when it comes to the prophecy? noelle isnt supposed to be in it!!! while this au is sort of a roleswap in that noelle takes kris's place its not a roleswap in Any Other Way, which means, yeah, the prophecy is still supposed to be a human. and noelle, uh, isnt that! but she goes around and helps close dark worlds and is part of the delta warriors anyways, which is, for ralsei, this like, really scary point.

cause ralsei? adores noelle!! thats her best friend!!! ralsei doesnt know if she has a crush on noelle or wants to be noelle! noelle just does what she WANTS. she bucks against the pressures her family puts on her. she dives into the dark despite the fact that this world was never made for her. shes TRANS. shes a GIRL, and she can just DO THAT, and ralsei looks at her, and just. wants. in every sense of the word.

because noelle has all these things put on her like ralsei does--but noelle gets to slip out of them. noelle gets to be a person.

and ralsei, non-person, darkner: she doesnt.

she never will.

[fisherrprince]

started dark knight bc I hit the level cap and already I can see why everyone is like the writing for DRK is the best

[astrxealis]

sorry to ffxivlovepost always anyway Man the way the devs & game did so good in making an mc that is Basically a blank-slate for the players, and there's so many opportunities to make your oc However you like but. the game itself adds so much story and character to that blank-slate guy. amazing

[impossible-rat-babies]

i wanna take 14’s paladin and stick it ishgard and make them weird about halone

[ooc-miqojak]

Thank God. As a healer, I'm sick of these abilities. They're no good outside of working with people you know, because a pug tank will ALWAYS use this at the exact same time a healer uses a big healing ability (ask me how I know)...thus negating all the healing they just got as they drop themself to zero, and now I have no instant heal that heals them to basically full, when they flub this ability hard...because they panicked instead of letting me do my job and use a big heal which heals for more, the lower health a tank is. (Rare is the tank that uses this ability in the correct way and nails it in a pug.)

It's important to know what abilities a tank has at hand, as their healer, but it's equally important for a tank to know what their healer can do/is good at, and trust the healer to do that. You can tell pretty quickly, as a pug tank, if your healer is struggling to keep up when the pressure is on - keep your "self-harm-defensive" ready then, but... frankly, 8/10 times a tank uses one of these abilities in a pug, they don't seem to know how to use it right, and it just ends up frustrating. I have had ONE person use this kind of ability well this year, and was duly impressed. ( Shout out to the DRK tank I had once who is the only one I've ever seen use Living Dead super well, and practically on rotation.)

I don't hate this ability in like, a situation where I'm on voice or something and the tank can notify me as a healer, of what they're going to do... so we don't both use huge CDs at the same time that basically counteract each other.

Doing dong, the witch is dead, and all that!

HOW FUCKING DARE YOU. GIVE ME BACK MY MEME. THIS ISNT YOUR JOB ITS MINE GOD DAMN YOU.

[selfcontainedunivcrse]

making cvwoop into sonic continues to be a devastating character decision

[tritoch]

in general trying to write a fully canon-compliant wol, as i conceive it, is an interesting project because the wol's life involves such a staggering amount of direct interpersonal violence it is almost beyond comprehension. the only people in the real world who did anything comparable are like, certain executioners for totalitarian states, and that's obviously a very different form of violence.

and like obviously combat in FFXIV should not in any way be taken as a 1:1 with real world violence, not least because the game repeatedly points to the idea that combat can in some sense be a joyous and glorious form of personal expression (as with ravana, susano, zenos, etc.), which doesn't really square with the reality of doing violence. but to even begin to conceive of a character who's capable of doing what the WoL does from ARR on and trying to take it somewhat seriously means basically making an extremely detached killing machine, who's fine using those skills for any rando willing to call the hit they're hiring you for a "quest".

it ends up dovetailing really nicely with the games as written, though; you start ARR being like "i am an instrument of violence directed by others :)" and not talking much or ever registering your own thoughts on anything, because who cares? you're a violence-doing machine. and then one of your friends gets mind-controlled and you gotta fight a might-makes-right fascist and you meet multiple people who think you personally are a really cool person with inherent value in their own right just by being a person and it's like, hm. maybe there are other ways to live. and that parallels really nicely with DRK in HW, and then you and alphinaud deciding that you are tired of endless sacrifices in the name of progress and you are going to save estinien, and then the WoL getting to walk into stormblood having really consciously chosen this fight rather than letting someone else choose for them.

obviously there are a lot of stories you can tell with your WoL but to me this is a big part of why my approach to it necessarily revolves primarily around violence and regret. you spend the core game and two expansions becoming a terrible angel of death and then get teleported to another world where you learn that some people literally consider you a psychopomp who escorts the dead to their final rests. then in the next expansion you meet someone who was unfortunate enough to be on the other end of things during your implacable killing machine days. THEN you accidentally cause the flower that symbolizes grief to be invented. the wol's whole life is haunted by overwhelming grief (mostly that of other people) and terrible violence (mostly their own).

[haellen-o]

Then Vs Now: Haellen Orestes

hey uh this got away from me a little bit and there's a massive wall of text and old screenshots detailing my adventure through FFXIV. it gets a little personal cause man this game was with me through some rough times, and those rough times did kinda shape my experience. so uh... yeah tl;dr i yap a lot. do not ask me to talk about my experiences with media i WILL ramble

ARR (August 2020)

by now i had actually met my main friendgroup and they were all starting to get into FFXIV. it was free. one of our other friends was picking it up. and everyone else was like "yeah why not" and i got hit with an unironic sales pitch. because i hate MMO's and i was refusing to even try it because and i quote (myself) "I've tried every other MMO what's gonna be different about this one?"

so yeah i was a fucking idiot lmao. Haellen orestes was born sometime between the 20th to the 31st of august. the earliest screenshot i can find i'm not using cause it looks a w f u l and is really dark and hard to see. so i'm using this one that was taken a little bit later with crime tools with one of my good old friends. that's their highlander on the right. and on the left is baby haellen (or scaellen as i like to call her)

HW (September 2020)

Bnuuy haellen was born shortly after i bought the game (which was a little bit after prae/castrum) and i swapped over to viera. because FF12 was one of my favourite games and my first real exposure to deep diving into a games lore and world building. and i happened to love viera. bnuuy haellen was quite different to haellen now. she was a lot more flirty. a little bit horny, and also not as (physically) strong. she was a science and magic lady in canon despite me playing dragoon and drk in HW. I didn't really have a good idea of how i wanted her character to be yet so i was still experimenting with looks. glams. and hair. i was also still REALLY enjoying the game at the time. especially after i nearly dropped it during the post ARR pre HW slog. the music and story got so much better and i was suddenly super invested in the game. i was also starting to finally meet some more people who played the game and got into communities and FC's

Stormblood (January 2021)

bnuuy haellen was starting to take shape. i had a solid idea for her and knew what i wanted to do with her character for RP purposes. aloof, flirty, friendly, and completely oblivious to actual romance advances. i believe by now i had also fully integrated into being part of a small FC where i made some good friends (who i am no longer friends with due to reasons i'm gonna keep private. No need to air dirty laundry)

Late Shadowbringers (May 2021)

Well the bnuuy is starting to look a little more like a haellen now. And she was starting to BE a little bit more like a haellen too!, kinda reserved, very smart, friendly in a flirty way, and can also kick the shit out of you. by now this was when i started to meet one of my now good good very close friends (an understatement) and was starting to get into the meat of the game. i started gposing less and started doing actual content and playing other classes. as well as doing things like maps, on content extremes. and even dabbled on the idea of tackling an ultimate and finding a team for that (Spoiler. i never did lol) but i was starting to grow tired of being a viera. not because of the lack of hats or the fact everyone was a viera... but because of people being INCREDIBLY HORNY to random strangers on the internet. i've neve recieved so many out of pocket ERP requests before then and hooboy i was growing tired of it...

July 2021 (Endgame shadowbringers)

Well now who is this beautiful woman? this was when haellen began to TRULY become who she is now. stronk. independent. incredibly smart. will punch you. and also (at this time) composer and enjoyer of music. By now i had met all the friends i had made in XIV and was starting to take a break. i was getting burned out on doing high tier content and was starting to not enjoy the game as much. So i started to go back to casual stuff. including levelling classes! (baby bard as pictured here) and the horny in game messages died down completely! because no one cares about hyurs! [quiet sobbing]

by now i was also completely infatuated with nero. and at this time in the old writing it was a little bit of unrequited love. this was pre fan-fic writing so i was just creating l o r e (bonus pic because it made me chuckle but i have no context to give it since it was taken shortly after the other)

Endwalker (December 2021)

By this point i was deep into my casual content. i was still joining for maps but i was mostly doing older content i missed out on that could be done easily. and older mount farming, as well as getting deeper into RP and starting to dabble with the idea of writing a fanfic. this is also when haellen became as she is now. simultaniously the smartest person in the room, and also the dumbest. reserved in public, stronk asf, and back to being blonde!. this was also when i really started to become... More myself. its really funny that endwalker specifically has such a close place in my heart not because it touched me deeply (it did) but because i also went through several self realisation phases. it was a tough year and i did a lot of soul searching and found a lot of answers to questions i had, not all were good. But they all were for the better.

you may recognise that highlander in the backgrounder too, my good good friend ivarr. we'll come back to him

Post endwalker (march 2022)

Babies first modded gposes! that is the haellen i feel most people will recognise. my poor laptop could NOT handle the game at all and it turned into a portable heater, but i was enjoying trying out modded gposes. especially the lovely calfskin jacket replacer i found. and also by this point haellen was the haellen you know today

THE OPHELIA ARC BEGINS (June 2022)

I was a little deeper into writing fanfic now, going from roleplay to solo writing was a little difficult. and that's when i wanted to experiment with some different races, thus ophelia was born. she quickly became her own thing instead of "Elf haellen" and HOO BOY IF ONLY I KNEW HOW MUCH THIS ELF WOULD GET STUCK IN MY HEAD... and if only i knew how much this game would help me again through a dark time

Island sanctuary (August 2022)

Fun fact. i was homeless during this period! By this point i was starting to get into doing more modded stuff for gposing. Including shaders and modded outfits. I was trying my best to not turn into a modbeast because i actually really like the vanilla aesthetic

Return of the bnuuy (january 2023)

With crime tools. I revived the bnuuy haellen as her own existence, an AU if you will. and the brainrot began, and oh BOY i have so many unfinished and unpublished writings from this time. and also by this point i had become kinda content with my existence in FFXIV

Intermission (January 25th 2023)

THIS IMAGE HAUNTS ME IN MY SLEEP (affectionate) ivarr elbow dropping forchenault my beloved

anyway this kinda got away from me. the post i was tagged in was super short and nice and then going back and looking through all my stuff i was like "OH MAN A LOT HAPPENED BETWEEN 2020 AND 2024 HOLY SHIT" and uh... Well its gotten so far away from me we're having an intermission for me to apologise for this being SO DAMN LONG and also a little personal... i like going through memory lane and it gets me a little introspective, and even if this gets hit with the too long didn't read. I've enjoyed going through my back log and seeing all my memories. and remembering the times i've had and how much this game helped me through times. the rest of 2023 was (very thankfully) uneventful. partway through the year i finally joined tumblr and finally got a house (its very awful! in hindsight this should not have been celebrated! help :D) the ophelia arc continued to the point where i'm debating if i put more time into haellen or ophelia, and i got the confidence to be more myself, and put my writing out there for people to view

Now (28th of december, 2024)

And now? well. I'm hopelessly in love with these two absolute goobs (Warning: do not call ophelia a goob. she is wanted for several crimes against humanity)

and i'm doing much better. both in my relationship with FFXIV. mentally. and... well not physically i really need to work on that. but i'm in less pain than i was before!. And more importantly i'm excited to play dawntrail eventually, when i have the money to lol... I also need to fix haellen cause ugh my girl does not look like my girl H E L P

Tagged by @otherworldseekers thank you for inadvertantly putting me down the memory rabbit hole and i apologise if you read through this for how much i blabbed on about my journey lol

i almost don't want to tag anyone cause i don't want to condemn people to read through this. its so fucking long and i yap and blab so much about stuff that i really feel like doesn't matter but also is kinda integral to my experience to this game and why its so close to my heart?

anyway. woe walls of text and tag games upon ye @hdawg1995 @uldahstreetrat @cindernet-exploded @sylaurin and also anyone else who actually reads through this wall of text that wants to take part

[fromtheladiesoflight]

Ladies' Profile: Khoride Borlaaq

Name: Khoride [Koh-reed-ay] of the Borlaaq (Ride [reed-ay] is an acceptable nickname, though only very close friends or cute women get away with making the "ride" pun.)

Pronouns: she/her (her relationship to womanhood is complex, but boils down to "yes, I am a woman")

Age: 31 (as of Patch 6.55, The Coming Dawn, born April 15/16th Sun of the 2nd Umbral Moon in the year preceding Mirita's birth.)

Origin: Xaela Au Ra

Clan: Borlaaq

Family members: Gorbeljin (mother), Berude (oldest sister), Orgelen and Orbei (older twin sisters), Khorijin Borlaaq (twin sister...But It's Complicated), Ystride Borlain (sister-by-choice...it's Also Complicated)

Height: 190.2 cm/6’2”

Preferred professions: RPR, BLM, DRK

Aetheric alignment: Astral fire

(Dark Knight questline & MSQ story spoilers from Heavensward forward follow from here. You have been warned.)

================================================

Unlike her older twin Khorijin, Khoride's origins are not quite so mundane as to simply be born to Gorbeljin. Though her mother was not cruel to Khorijin--far from it, in fact--the stresses of growing up with the domineering, insecure Berude as a older sister in the face of Gorbeljin's mild unpopularity within the clan Borlaaq and strong dislike outside of it planted a seed of discontent in Khorijin, a side of her where all the feelings she repressed nourished and fed a voice within her. Coming to Eorzea only fed said voice all the more; learning of Gridania's racism towards Duskwights and only barely managing to save Foulques from a grisly fall and fate, the slaughter at the Waking Sands, Mirita being falsely accursed of killing Nanamo ul Namo, and the dispersal of the Scions each contributed in their own way, feeding and nourishing Khoride within Khorijin, but leaving her as a voice without a right to control the body she shared.

Then, a chance discovery in the Brume granted Khorijin the power of the Dark Knight--and let Khoride finally speak her truth for the first time. In so doing, Khoride would both steer Khorijin down the path of the Dark Knight in the guise and name of "Fray", and then at nights whilst in Ishgard use Khorijin's body to further pursue blunt justice with the blade as the Void-Blue Dark Knight, savior to the common Ishgardian, protector of Brumelings, and bloody, terrifying nightmare to the corrupt clergy and nobility. Eventually, however, Khorijin would confront "Fray", and ultimately subdued her twin by force of arms; "Fray" herself simply fell into slumber before briefly rising to help Khorijin confront "Myste" in the wake of Garlemald's expulsion from Ala Mhigo and Doma.

Afterward, as Mirita, Khorijin, and Rija all managed to travel to the First in pursuit of the mysterious call that drew them there and knocked the Scions unconscious, "Fray" reappeared to them in full in Norvrandt, now taking the name "Khoride" as a merger of Khorijin's own name and Berude's, and manifesting the ability to properly inhabit her own body through sheer force of will and careful application of a prototypical "Living Shadow" technique before eventually finding a way to anchor herself into a somewhat malleable but less temporary form.

By most appearances, Khoride appears to most as an “evil” Khorijin, with dark lipstick, eyeshadow, and a low, husky voice, but she is not so much evil as she is the full manifestation of the boiling wrath and emotions that Khorijin repressed for so long, and even now that Khorijin expresses much less openly. The most "dangerous" aspects of her behavior have been shaved away by time and maturity, but this still leaves a woman who gladly flaunts her strength, loves to fight, and is openly more sexual and domineering than Khorijin is, titling herself as a Devil Goddess as a mark of unabashed pride and pure domination over Vauthry, who proclaimed himself a god. However, for all her surface-level hedonism, bloodlust, crassness, and devil-may-care attitude, she is still very much like Khorijin where it matters--loving and caring towards those she holds dear, a fervent defender of the weak and downtrodden, and a fierce believer in justice even if if must be meted out by ones own hand.

Khoride is much like Khorijin in how she fights, but is far more heedless and reckless in certain aspects. While she is not careless in her actions, there is very clearly a bloodthirsty rush that she finds in fighting, and she will often tank powerful blows when she can get away with it, rarely fazed by the pain or power. When she closes, she most often slashes or burns, often channeling a Reaper's shroud to empower her blows or her spells and supplementing many of her physical attacks with flames. When she is fully ready to unleash her wrath, she is more than capable of unleashing Triplecast spells and physical attacks in tandem as either a Reaper or a Dark Knight, turning her into a brazen reflection of Khorijin's skills as a Red Mage.

[acaciapines]

making lots of real fun progress on the drk au outline!! haven’t started writing it at all yet (probably gonna try to start after xmas cause like. that last week is entirely empty space lol) but I’m figuring out lore and themes and how i want everything to connect! I’ve also got a real solid idea now for the very first chapter and how im introducing noelle, her changed family situation, Susie, and the first dark world so THATS all been a thrill lol. this au has been living in my brain for like, two years now! and so so so soon im gonna get to write it for real :333

[stalwart-spirit]

Character bingo: hmmmm Sidurgu? ^^

God I am so normal about the characters in the DRK questline--

Sidurgu is honestly a fantastic character, especially coming after Fray. In a way, he isn't quite your job mentor; you're both dealing with this stuff together, whilst facing the cruel world around you. Shit's rough, you can tough it out... Or do something about it.

Honestly I'm not usually a huge fan of male au'ra designs but his? Something about the balance they got just right for him. Such a brilliant character silhouette and their choice of colour palette for him is *chefs kiss*

[meowww-ffxiv]

At first I have it that Meowdred did level 30 to 70 DRK quests without even so much as telling Theodore. Theodore knew who Sidurgu and Rielle were, but figured it to be an immigrant and the girl he looked after that Meowdred adopted. As he usually did.

But *writing AU for my own OCs* what if Theodore was there in Whitebrim when the level 50 quest went down, you know?

It was a little different for Meowdred, who was well aware he might be strung along here and was going along with Fray's demands and communions because he THOUGHT he was laying a soul to rest. So when that shade of him manifested, it fully manifested with its core being the Dark Knight job crystal. And that sword it was swinging around? Real(TM). Left craters in the cobblestones. And it spoke with his voice.

It was literally dark fucking magic going on in front of like 70+ medieval knights and if it hadn't been for the equivalent of Combat Merlin (Meowdred the Warrior of Light) standing right there, they would have probably started shooting at him with the cannons.

Anyway.

Theodore was also there. He wasn't going to interfere at first -- believe it or not, this wasn't the first time Meowdred fucked around with something he shouldn't and found out when it spawned a voidsent or some monster that would proceed to dent his ass -- and was just trying to tell the medieval knights (his Orthodox countrymen) that this wasn't exactly what it looked like.

But then the Dark Meowdred started beating the fucking tar out of his cat and he had to intervene.

And as he was trying to peel Dark Meowdred off of His Cat, Dark Meowdred screamed, "They took and took and took, but it was YOU who kept giving away! YOU whose will to live is a sunk cost fallacy."

Theodore: ...Hewwo??

Meowdred: Bruh you can't just say my thoughts out loud like THAT.

Theodore: YOUR thoughts?

Meowdred: I mean. Who said that.

A couple of greatsword swings later and Dark Meowdred said, "I just want to live. I'm sorry I lived. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have been the one to survive."

Reminder that the 70+ Orthodox medieval knights were still around watching this open-mouthed.

Theodore really should shut this clone up. Kill it or something. He knew, fundamentally, that it was not Mordred. But it had his face and when it leaned on its broken greatsword and wept, it sounded like him. Theodore had his spear in hand, aether already gathered in the steel, in his legs to jump and dive and kill it, but he could not.

It didn't help that Mordred -- the real one -- just STOOD there with a dumbstruck expression.

Some demon must have possessed Theodore too, because for some reason he turned to Mordred and asked, "Is it true? What he is saying."

Mordred opened his mouth to answer, couldn't seem to find the words, and then just walked towards the tattered, nearly-spent shade of himself instead. The end of his staff caught fire, the air thick with static that usually forewarned of Mordred's fire spells--

--and for some reason, Theodore blurted, "Don't hurt him."

The shade scoffed. "Where were you when all the others hurt me? Where were you when I hurt me?"

"Shut up," Mordred said.

"You can't hurt me, though. I am pain. I am your pain." The shade lifted its broken greatsword and limped forward, and there was such hatred and something equally broken in its eyes. Grief? "It took this much to claw out of your shitty hide but I did it. And I won't go back. You can't shut me up. I won't let us die."

The thing took a wild swing at Mordred. But it had been a two-to-one fight and Mordred was still fresh. His ice spell pierced it through, held it in place with an agonized, broken roar, and Theodore's hand was on his Mordred's shoulder before both of them knew what was going on.

Theodore should say something. He should say anything, really. But he could not seem to force any word past his mouth. Mordred couldn't, either. The courtyard was deathly silent. All except the harsh, defiant sobbing-panting from the shade that was fraying at the edges, dissolving into shadow, but its face was still painfully and hatefully Mordred's.

"Don't hurt him," Theodore repeated. He knew he sounded stupid. He was stupid, really. This thing was not his friend.

But it was made of his friend. The part Mordred had never shared with Theodore, even now after they had saved Theodore's home together, saved their land together. They had the Echo, but even then, there were things locked too deep to surface.

So Mordred released the spell. The ice melted away and the shade crumbled. He knelt down next to it.

"Thank you," he said simply. "For looking after me."

The shade stared up at him. It didn't seem surprised. Its sneer eased, and then it finished dissolving into shadow, and the wind blew it away like ash.

...

The amount of cover up that went on in Whitebrim between those 70+ Orthodox medieval knights was surely comparable to legends of loyal battalions following their general into a suicide mission. No one would breathe a word of this outside the fort, Theodore and Mordred were assured. And apparently that was true? Theodore did not pay much mind to it.

Mordred left Coerthas altogether soon after -- as soon as he woke up from an eighteen-hour sleep that he fell into right after the encounter, anyway. It took Theodore a little time to track him down, to the outskirts of Aleport, in the golden wheat fields there.

Mordred was sitting on a rock, staring vacantly out of the fields, the sea. He clutched his staff still, like even sitting down, he needed the extra support to stay upright. At Theodore's approach, he eventually said, "It-- He was right. He spoke the truth."

"I understand," Theodore answered, coming to sit next to him so that their shoulders touched.

Mordred sighed through his nose. "I know. And I wish you didn't have to." His tail curled snugly around Theodore's back, and he leaned his full weight onto him, abandoning his staff in favor of a friend.

How much Mordred did it for himself and how much for Theodore, the two of them would never know. They did not need to know. The act was the proof.

"It wasn't that I was hiding all that from you," Mordred said. "I just--"

"Did not have the words?"

A feline ear flicked Theodore under the chin, ticklish. "Wounds on the body are easy," Mordred said. "A gash here, a cut there. Severed tendons, cracked bones. I don't know how to say that it-- When my sisters died in the Calamity, they left a hole behind. Chunks of me were gouged out. Tossed to the fire. The sea. And I had to keep living."

"After I watched my mother die, I wanted to follow her," Theodore said. The words felt numb on his tongue. "Not out of-- what you think, but because living with her loss, with the way she was taken from me... it felt like it would destroy me. Even more so that the one who declared her death lived in her room, in our house. I called him Father."

They sat there for a long moment, just letting the agony they had given words to sit there in the air.

Then Mordred said, "But all of that, and I still made it to you. Our paths crossed in this life. It's enough to not make me resent everything else too much."

Theodore squeezed that cat until he squeaked.

And then they never spoke of this again.

[yuri-is-online]

Dark knight is the most romantic job, huh? Maybe you should elaborate 👀

Oh well if I must~

notes: contains spoilers (very vague but yk still there) for the Dark Knight job quests, Shadowbringers role quests etc. Please play critically acclaimed mmrpg Final Fantasy XIV (now on xbox) with a free trial I am so normal about it and I promise you will be too. I need someone to grind gemstones with next expansion it only makes you want to die a little I swear.

I want to start by bringing something up I don't see discussed a lot (if at all) in discussion of the Dark Knight questline, and that is the background music used. When dramatic or poignant moments occur in other questlines, even the other two that were introduced in Heavesnward (machinist and astrologian), the cutscenes stick to the default/expansion appropriate sad music. This doesn't happen in the DRK questline though, instead the sound designers chose to play Dragonsong during what are some of the most emotionally charged moments in the whole game, and generally stick to the Heavesnward background music even through the Stormblood cut-scenes. The choice of Dragonsong is really what makes me think of the job as "romantic" more than anything; the song is in a lamentation of lost love and trust between dragon and man certainly, but you could also apply some of those lyrics to the separation between the Unsundered and the Warrior of Light, or the separation between the warrior's darker half and their willingness to shoulder their duty.

This musical choice becomes especially clear when you speak to Count Edmont at the end of the Stormblood job quests, as a very specific part of the song begins to play as the Warrior of Light is asked to reflect on what could have possibly caused their heart to break and crack their jobstone:

Not that I point this out to suggest it's cannon the Warrior had romantic feelings for any one person in particular, but to hammer home exactly what the Moogles try to tell you:

Dark Knights get their power from their love; that ugly, hard work, painful, your heart is trapped in a rib cage desperate to leave type of bleeding love that is desperate for somewhere to go and doesn't have it anymore.

"Love is grief with nowhere to go." Is a quote that can more or less apply to every Dark Knight we are introduced to in game. Fray is literally dead, we never truly meet him at all, Sidurgu had already lost his whole tribe only to then lose Fray and their master, Granson lost his wife, and Emet Selch... well what hadn't he lost? And they are all angry, burdened by their grief, and desperate for somewhere to put their love because the people they want to give it to are gone.

idk I just think the concept of taking your love for your fellow travelers and using it as a focus to overcome the worst parts of yourself (from your doubts to your anger and resentment) so you can use all of those emotions as fuel to protect them, even from themselves is just so romantic to me. You don't have to be happy about it to do the right thing, and you don't need to be nice to be good. Love isn't always cute, sometimes it is very ugly and raw and I love when stories play with that.

So yeah. The most romantic job. I could get more specific but it has been a long time since I played through these quests ;-; I should fix that