Can answer for Duplicity stuff or FFXIV stuff. Will also do any FFXIV characters if you just want my opinions/headcanons.

am I allowed to request all of them for Gus or is that too much?

Hahahahaha, that's definitely a lot! I can wax poetic about stuff for a while, if you want, but maybe start with 2-3 just like, to get me going?

Ten is a freebie, the answer is yes.

2-4, 7, 9

Oooh, these are going to be fun ones. Going to be a moment though because dinner reservation just got moved up unexpectedly.

2. What small things go a long way for your muse? What small favors can someone do to get on their good side? - My initial thought to this is "well, pretty much everything?" but there's a deeper explanation for that.

I think the little things ARE the big things for Gustavain. Like, he moves in a world of BIG gestures and BIG important things, so more grand gestures of affection or love would actually be taken less seriously because they're the thing that's just part of the background noise of his life?

Everything that happens to him happens at an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10.

So I think he's got a real appreciation for ALL of the little stuff, really. A thoughtful, small gift, a cup of coffee, a quiet moment. He's always just charmed to death when anyone does anything at all for him.

Connected, though outside of this scope: I'm trying to avoid any MAJOR spoilers if I can help it, but at a certain point in the game, when it's implied that you spend several hours talking to someone about your adventures-- Gustavain's stories are almost all little things. A cup of tea in Radz-at-Hahn, watching the sunrise over the mountains, etc etc

So someone bringing literally any of that to him is /chef's kiss

3. What’s their love language?

The amount I know about what the hell the love languages are is encompassed entirely by the wikipedia article I just looked up.

Like, I've heard people talk about them, but I generally think the whole thing is like... kind of useful I guess, but way overhyped and I mostly don't think about it.

I don't think Gustavain much values "words of affirmation", but I think he would be pretty positive to all of the rest of them.

And he's the WoL. His way of showing his love is definitely "acts of service"

4. What are expectations your muse has had about love that either was false or impossible to live up to?

Insert inevitable tragic backstory here.

I don't think Gus really had many expectations of love prior to being out in the world. His family's love for him was extremely conditional and I don't think he had any real good examples growing up of romantic love from like, mentors or anyone he looked up to.

He was very close to his sister and they had a familial love and bond, but she's really the only one he was close to. I'm sure he read storybooks with this big fancy love in them, but come on.

He's an Ishgardian nobleman. He's aware that all of those are fairy tales.

If anything, I think he had lower expectations than normal about love-- but even then, it's much more likely that he just never really thought about it.

And I don't think that any of that was exactly... disproven...? So much as sort of is what changed into all of his like... deep, abiding background love for everyone and everything.

I think if you asked him like "do you think you'll ever find the love of your life" he would just be confused and be like "what, just one?"

"And why do I have to love someone for my entire life for that love to be meaningful?"

7. What’s their idea of a perfect date?

I think Gus would say perfection is a lie and why strive for something like that when he's going to enjoy himself no matter what?

But I also think he's just kind of simple? Food, an activity, sex. What that actually looks like depends on the person.

Who I actually headcanon him as "canonically" being sexually involved with is a moving target, and none of these suggestions should be considered to be "canonical" but for example like...

Perfect date with G'raha might be: picnic lunch followed by easy monster killing followed by a warm, snuggly sort of bath. Perfect date with Aymeric might look more like: fancy pants eight course dinner, tea on a terrace watching the sun set, someone gets tied to that sinfully awesome bed you know Aymeric has.

Perfect date with Estinien: something light and casual, finding somewhere dangerously high up to spar until they're a little bit in danger of not being able to jump down, crazy battle high adrenaline sex.

etc.

There's just something kind of appealing about that layout.

9. What’s something you feel like your muse needs to work on for a relationship to happen or for a relationship to be healthy? Do you think that’s possible? Or is it something that’ll likely never happen?

I'm not sure if there's exactly something for him to "work on" for a healthy relationship?

I do think he's probably accidentally broken his fair share of hearts, particularly back in the early adventuring days.

In some ways, he's like, super healthy for anyone. He'll be understanding and super respectful of your issues, love you for who you are, but also push you to be the best version of yourself.

He's so interested in every part of the human experience that he's chill with literally anything you could possibly be interested in, and will get interested in it alongside you.

He absolutely lives for emotional intimacy.

But I mean, the elephant in the room is that you're going to have to be strong enough to share him.

Any relationship that requires him to not love and be intimate with others, or put someone higher on a pedestal in his heart than everyone else is a relationship he's walking away from.

Which isn't to say that he doesn't ever have favorites! Just that he sees that as a natural extension of personality and intimacy, not as something that can ever be "officiated" by someone.

And because of that, I think particularly in his early adventurer years, he's probably been the toxic person in the relationship without realizing it.

He's probably also been in relationships where the other person was super toxic without realizing it too, though.

Or at least like, I can easily see bb!gus getting into a situation as the younger, inexperienced party where someone was like, using him for sex or something without realizing it, but I also don't think it would leave much in the way of scars because like... he would still be having fun?

He's not going to have sex with someone he doesn't want to have sex with, so what does it matter to him if the other person is getting something out of it they're not telling him about? It was still good sex.