Author Answers (December) (Patreon)

General

Hi Lena! Silly q incoming for #tellmeeverything—I was chatting with a friend and somehow we got on the topic of Blade fishing. While I feel like Blade is probably good at anything requiring physical finesse, it’s hard to imagine he’d be down to sit there and wait hours and hours for a bite. So my question is, would Blade enjoy fishing and would he be good at it? Or would he be frowning into the water while the other Shepherds are vibing sipping beers and telling him it’s not that deep?

Hi anon! Blade is actually very patient, so quiet, meditative stuff like fishing can appeal to him (often more than hunting, unless he's strapped for time), so when it's necessary out on the road or during a mission, he quite enjoys it! It's a rare moment of peace and silence in his otherwise chaotic life, and his personality tends to thrive under those conditions, so normally he likes it. However, he's just okay at it, neither particularly good nor particularly bad *when he's alone! He'll usually catch enough to have a decent dinner for himself, but he's no expert. However, the absolute irony of this (and this has been a running joke in my head for years) is that when he's with other people, he's somehow really awful at fishing. He never catches anything! He claims it's because the people he's with are usually too loud and scare away the fish, but this theory is totally bunk because Trouble can be right next to him and catch, like, 9 fish while Blade catches 0. And because he only catches things when he's alone, no one believes him that he's not horrible at it! This also applies to gambling/games of chance: when he's working alone, he's not great at them, about as average as anyone else, but when he's with the other Shepherds, for some reason his luck absolutely plummets and he suddenly seems awful at it. It's very irritating to him but very funny for everyone else!

So basically: when alone, yes, he enjoys fishing! When with others, he hates it and gets very frustrated 😔

I've seen some nap questions but not this one, I don't think. (Sorry if it has been asked.) Which RO would let MC take a nap on them and who is the most comfortable to nap on?

Hi there, thanks for your question! I might have been asked something like it before, but I'm too lazy to go looking, so I'll just answer here:

Blade

Trouble

Tallys (head in lap mostly, I think)

Shery (most comfortable with head in lap or being cuddled while napping rather than slept on, if that makes sense, but she can make it work)

Chase (but it usually requires special circumstances, like either he's napping as well or MC is in recovery or something, otherwise he'd likely get a little bored 😂)

Red

Ayla (same as Chase, she'll tolerate it but she'd prefer other positions, or there are usually extenuating circumstances, but she won't just offer like 'come take a nap on me')

Briony

Halek (more of a 'come nap with me' rather than 'nap on me' guy, but because he's so big that's usually the default position anyway)

I think Lavinet and Riel would allow some lap-napping in the right conditions, but they wouldn't be comfortable with full-on "sleep on top of me, especially while I stay awake" mode. As for who's most comfortable, I imagine it'd be Trouble for the guys (dense and warm and comfy..... his chest) or potentially Red (not too muscular, not too bony), and for the girls, it'd be Shery for her softness and curves and stillness, with Lavinet as a close second!

hi lena!! i have maybe an odd question but it is important for fic-writing purposes 👀 so hear me out:  what are each romanced!/deeply-in-love! ROs thoughts on getting their smooches in first thing in the morning, despite any morning breath that they or their beloved MC might have? like, who completely doesn’t care and just wants to get some kisses and who would just refuse to smooch they’ve brushed their teeth (or chewed on some mint leaves, idk how fantasy!dental hygiene works)

Hi, thanks for the question! Let's see:

Morning kisses galore:

Blade

Trouble

Tallys

Chase

Red

Ayla

Briony

Self-conscious about their own morning breath, but will exchange close-mouth/tight-lipped kisses or pecks on the lips before brushing their teeth:

Shery

Lavinet

Riel

And they brush their teeth in Blest just like we do, I know it may not be the most immersive thing but I just couldn't deal with any other alternative 😂

Hope you are having a wonderful December Lena! And that you have a wonderful start to the new year!! My ask is in a AU that is similar to the Hunger Games, what would the ROs reactions be if their name was called and the MC volunteered as tribute in their place during crushing/early romance phase? Gender doesn't have to match, males can volunteer for females and vice-versa.

Hi there, thank you so much, I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season as well!! ❤️ And great question! I think that their reactions would be fairly similar to what would happen if MC volunteered to stay behind on a mission to allow the others to escape: 

"Absolutely not," will physically fight MC to not allow them to take their place, almost seems angry or indignant about the gesture (but that's just out of fear):

Blade

Trouble

Briony

Would be so stunned/shook that they wouldn't initially know how to react at first, would just be taken extremely off-guard, so MC might actually take their place because they're too slow to react:

Ayla (she would end up physically fighting MC if she could process things quickly enough)

Shery

Would initially try to argue with MC, but would ultimately reluctantly come to a compromise where they both went as tribute and vowed to work together to survive (idk if this is allowed in the Hunger Games, it's been a really long time and I never saw the movies XD):

Red

Riel

Tallys

Would be so thrown off-guard and devastated by MC's actions that they could only approach MC quietly afterwards and ask simply, "...Why?" After the inevitable realization that MC loves them (or they love MC), they'd vow to burn down the entire Hunger Games and dismantle the whole thing from behind the scenes while MC is in the arena (like sneaking into President Snow's (?) bedroom and assassinating him, that kind of thing lol)

Chase

Lavinet

Hi Lena! Hope your holiday season is going well so far!  Assuming the inner circle are all pretty close with MC, what is their reaction to MC (and their RO) announcing they’re pregnant/going to be parents? (Bonus: would any of the inner circle have a different reaction depending on who the RO/other parent was?)

Hi kingdom, same to you!! And good question 🤔

Blade: he's quietly happy for the couple and sincerely congratulates them, but inside he's sweating like 'oh my god I'm going to have to deal with heavy doses of guilt every time I send MC/RO into a dangerous, high-risk mission knowing that there's a baby waiting for them at home, I'm now a destroyer of families... 😓' Wracked with conflict over being an impartial commander and trying to help them out and preserve their happiness!!

Trouble: 'YAHHHHHH I'M GOING TO BE AN UNCLE' He celebrates so much that outsiders might think he personally had a hand in the babymaking

Tallys: depending on the nature of her relationship to MC, this might make her emotional! Seeing the birth of a new generation and new life is so precious... she's going to be the best aunt to that kid... but also it might be a somewhat sad reminder of her friends' mortality versus her own...

Shery: she's squealing and jumping up and down in joy!! her eyes are sparkling with all of the things she can do to welcome the new baby... baby showers... knitting them a baby blanket... cute onesies!!!!

Riel: he's sincerely happy for them, but inside he's having nightmare panic-sweats about a baby crawling all over his desk and spitting up on his papers and Trouble barging in dangling a baby like a football under his arm while screaming about how it said its first word. he hopes the parents will be able to create a wonderful household for themselves... while remembering that you don't always have to bring stuff into work 😅 but on the outside, he's just as cordially excited as everyone else!

Red: oh that's awesome! congratulations!!

Ayla: 'oh FUCK yeah. I'm gonna teach that baby to be such a little badass. I promise no one's going to ever mess with them' 'who--who would mess with a baby' 'no one. because i'm going to teach it how to choke bitches out'

Briony: OMG!!!!!!! A BABY!!!!!!!! 🥹🥹🥹🥰😍😭!!!!!!! She LOVES babies. I think her level of excitement is literally indescribable. Her initial scream of joy might actually shatter windows, she's going to be so hyped and sobbing and excited that it's going to be insane. I can't even say what would be going through her mind because it would be going so fast it would just be like 

Lavinet: she would be so happy and excited for MC and their RO! but, like Red, it's like a normal level of excitement, lol. She's not frantically punching a pillow out of feelings like Briony

Hi! Sorry for my English but how would the to react to a (romanced) mc who love to sing but is awful at it (and doesn’t know it lol)? Who would tell them and who would just act like they have a beautiful voice?

Blade: he just wouldn't say anything lol. He would neither claim that they had a beautiful voice, nor would he tell them the truth. He would just tolerate their singing in silence, and they would just assume that's his normal state of being and not read into things lmao

Trouble: he would pretend it was great! But he's a really bad liar, so it would be fairly obvious to anyone except a really oblivious MC 😅 he'll gamely keep up the lie until the end, though!

Tallys: same strategy as Blade, diplomatic silence

Shery: *clapping with polite enthusiasm* "oh my gosh, how beautiful! 😊🥰" she would even ask for an encore, she's an angel 😭 she would even claim it to other people if it came up, like Chase: "so MC is a horrible singer, right?" Everyone else: "oh yeah" Shery: "I actually quite like their singing!!" (lie)

Riel: he would be so annoyed by this lol he would just have to remove himself from the situation and pretend he has to work in his office 😂 he would only tell them the truth if it came up in a situation that mattered, like if MC was like 'oh I know, what if I masquerade as a professional singer to infiltrate that noble's party?' Then he would have to be like "no that wouldn't work." he'd find a nice way to say it, but ultimately he'd get it across that no one on god's green earth would ever believe MC is a professional lol

Chase: he'd be into it! bad singing is more charming to him than good singing, honestly. he'd sincerely cheer them on and look at them proudly, like "that's my sunshine! best singer this side of the Continent <3" He would absolutely ask them to sing in front of others to troll people, just to watch their faces as they tried to sit through it and pretend it was great

Red: he's taking that secret with him to the grave, even if you directly ask him 😅

Ayla: I think she'd put up with it for a long time, not like enthusiastically cheering you on or really praising you for your singing, but 'yeah if you want to sing, go ahead'! But she would fess up to it if MC directly asked her!

Briony: she is SO readable that I don't know how you'd ever not notice it, but I absolutely imagine it going like this: 

MC: "can I sing for you?" 

Briony: *genuine excitement* "oh my god, of course!! 🥰"

MC: *sings*

Briony: 😃

Briony: 😀

Briony: 🙂

Listen. She'd try to keep up the facade for as long as humanly possible and would like laugh awkwardly and nervously praise MC like "wow!! SO good! just really... that was great!!" But eventually she's going to fold if MC keeps prompting her for praise, and then it will just burst out of her without her being able to hold it back any longer 😂

Lavinet: she would just always be making polite excuses to not hear MC sing and hope that he got the hint LOL. like "ohhh I would love to, darling, but I have the worst headache right now... perhaps another time..."

I sincerely think the only person who would ever tell MC "haha oh my god you're awful" would be Caine, and only because he thought their singing was a joke and that they were pulling his leg 😅

I know you can't tell us how the ROs will react once they find out MC isn't exactly with us in the present moment because spoilers but! when romanced, how long would it typically take the ROs to notice MC's missing/not following their normal routine? (in other words, who checks in the most with the MC throughout a regular day and is totally velcroed 👀)

Hi there, so this is also sort of a complex question because none of the Shepherds typically follow "a normal routine"! Almost every single day looks completely different for them, so one day it could be wake up > breakfast > [immediately go on patrol until dinner] or [leave the compound to run various personal errands or have a day off] or [leave for a week-long mission to Brunen with no notice] or [train your recruits and hang out with everyone in the evening] or [teach a cadet class on gunslinging with Trouble]. What I mean to say is that everyone is doing so many different things and all of the rotating shifts are so myriad that there isn't really a routine where you could constantly be glued to someone's side or check in with them every few hours, because you might have no idea what they're doing today or where they are!

This is why it's very easy for MC to be gone all day and for no one to be like "huh, that's weird, MC didn't show up for lunch, I should go looking for them!" There could be twenty different things that MC is doing that someone else or no one is really aware of because you didn't happen to catch them on their way out or didn't see them at breakfast, etc. Sometimes people's schedules and shifts align perfectly and they can end up spending the entire day or week doing everything together, and of course, in those instances, it'd be easy to know that MC hadn't shown up for their duties--but other times, there's always so much going on in the Order that it would be perfectly normal not to see them for a day or more and not think anything of it!

Sorry that that doesn't answer your question entirely, but hopefully it makes sense! 😅

Hi! Hope your holiday is going well. I was wondering, was the southern Isles unique in practicing slavery or did other cultures practice slavery as well prior to the Castigation?

Hi there, thanks for your question! Some of the Northernmost parts of the Continent (like Vim and Sarva) also practice slavery (but it's less in the way that we typically think of it and is more like conquered, captive prisoners-of-war being used as slave labor, or the gladiator slaves of Heth Macoll, not a systemic, institutionalized form of slavery). Similarly, you may see slaves as well as the far East like in Jalis, but this is a warlord thing rather than something totally condoned and officialized in their society/culture like in the Sesz Isles. There was a very brief amount of time where Diminished captive slaves were used to build some aspects of Haven, like in the months directly following the Castigation, but this led to such widespread revolt and mass "self-destruction" that it was quickly terminated as a practice and then outright outlawed again immediately after. 

Hi Lena!! Happy December, I hope you'll have a wonderful rest year and an even more wonderful 2023!:D

My question for the Q&A:

What would the Shepherd's favorite game genre(s) and Video game(s) be?👀

Okay, I definitely 100000% have answered this before, but I can't find it! 😭 Here's this post about what video games they would be, which I definitely recommend looking at, as it should double in giving you an idea of what kinds of games they play as well as what their favorites would be! The favorites are bolded, but just in case it's not clear: 

Blade: I don't think he'd be a very big gamer, but I could see him liking Sekiro or Assassin's Creed! He's not the type to really grind, but for some reason all I can think of when it comes to his are games like Dark Souls or Bloodborne 😂

Trouble: he'd probably be into shooters like Overwatch/Valorant/Fortnite, but his OG favorite would probably be something like Halo or Call of Duty!

Tallys: she wouldn't really be much of a gamer lol, but if she were, her favorite would definitely be GreedFall, though Horizon Zero Dawn and probably the Last of Us would be close runners-up!

Shery: Animal Crossinggggg

Riel: he'd like very cerebral, challenging games. Civ 6 would definitely be his favorite!

Chase: he'd like the open-world-type games like GTA, Mafia, Red Dead, Saints Row, etc., but his favorite might be Yakuza just because of how batshit it is 😂

Red: he'd probably love Elder Scrolls (Skyrim) or Fire Emblem for the tactical aspect!

Ayla: she'd be really into fighting games (Street Fighter, etc.) or hack and slash-types of games (Monster Hunter), but her all-time favorite would probably be Tomb Raider!

Briony: Dragon Age or Mass Effect, depending on her mood and which RO she missed at any given moment 😭 Final Fantasy 7 would be an extremely close runner-up! 

Lavinet: I don't think she'd be much of a gamer, but she'd probably enjoy games with more social elements and pop culture (The Quarry, Until Dawn) or something more laidback like the Sims!

Halek: I think his favorite for just pick-up-and-play value would be something like Overcooked or Tetris LOL but if you want the "artsy" answer he'd probably say something like Journey or Spiritfarer or Celeste or Hades!

Hi there, thanks for your question! 

In a modern setting, what kind of jobs would the main gang (ROs+Caine) have?  If this was already answered somewhere im sorry

Hi there, that's no problem! It's been answered here!

Spoilers

What happened to the Asteriae?

Pretty much what happened to the Drakes and the Elementals: after the diminishing of the gods/One-God after the Dawn Wars, and after the additional "fading" of magic and other Diminished powers in the world after the Castigation, and after the eruption of the volcano on Vim (which poisoned the air with ash), the Asteriae themselves experienced a kind of decline in their society and withdrew from the Continent to sort of isolate themselves and try to rebuild their civilization again somewhere else. For the Drakes, this meant tunneling into the earth to slumber near the earth's core to maintain their strength and vitality; for the Elementals, it also meant entering a long period of stasis or hibernation; and for the Asteriae, it meant using their floating cities to sail away from the Continent and drift to other areas of the world. I'm not sure yet if they went south (towards the Southern Continent, across the Dyer Oth, or if they went east to places uncharted!

a while back u mentioned that u were planning on getting shery, riel, chandry and mimir drunk this chapter - are we finally gonna see dark shery?!?!!?!? is she gonna make a move on mc?!?!?!

Yes!! 😩😩 well, you're going to see them drunk - I don't know yet if dark Shery will emerge, but she's definitely going to get a bit bolder about MC! 😂 MC's about to be shook by what they're about to witness...

I'm wondering how the stats represent our reputation in the Shepherds.   Like when would MC be considered to be a beginner/skilled/master magic wielder. At what point is MC considered a leading expert in their field of magic and would they be sought out for lessons and tips? If we even get to that stage at all.

I think this is a somewhat complex question because I don't necessarily equate MC's personal stats to how it places them in the larger world and context of Blest! To me, I think a 100 in Astral means "extremely powerful in astral magic," not "effortlessly #1 out of all Astral Mages they will encounter, or complete mastery of the overall field." I guess the stat is more about how much you need to get the job done, or how powerful you're going to get within the specific timeline of the game, but it doesn't necessarily indicate lifelong expert mastery, if that makes any sense. Like I still think MC will have lots more room to learn and grow even after the game is over (and they live, of course)! When I think "leading expert in the field," I think of someone who has such household recognition for their feats in that specific area that they're at the pinnacle of things and don't have anyone else to learn from, like the... the... like a professor in that subject, or the David Attenborough of zoology, or the Warren Buffet of finance, or... I'm blanking, but hopefully you know what I mean. I think MC is definitely at "beginner level" in the early chapters of the game (especially in Chapters 1-3) and progresses on to moderate by Chapter 5-6, and by 7 they're pretty established and beginning to be quite advanced! (You can see this in the difference between choices when they're chasing Thurl and can, like, ride along with a swarm of bats or transform themselves into a hawk, versus Chapter 1, where it was a feat to even talk to a cat). This is also when Red can talk with them about the idea of being a guest lecturer for the Circle Mages in the Order, so that should give you some idea of their skill level at that point! 

In Chapter 8, though, when they experience what the world was like before the Castigation, they definitely experience a level of impostor syndrome, like "whoa I did not realize how much I don't know, this level of magic is totally foreign to me," and this is part of their disorientation during the beginning parts of that adventure.

Anyway, all of this to say is, by the time they get to 100, they'd certainly be recognized as one of the strongest Mages in the Order, and they're unique in that they have experience in marrying magical power with actual, real-life combat and field applications instead of only being in a theoretical classroom setting; but because strength doesn't necessarily equate to total mastery, there may always be someone who knows more than them about a particular thing (like an instructor from the Circle who's spent twenty years studying the Arcane field) or is more experienced in doing X thing, even if that person's raw power doesn't actually match MC's. So I think MC will certainly become a guiding example and expert for a lot of people to turn to for specific things, but not the only or foremost one. When their name comes up, I think more people think "Hero of Haven" rather than "even better Healer than the Head Healer and knows everything there is to know about Healing," if that makes any sense. Of course, you can always headcanon it however you want, especially with your own MC's backstory and personality, but I'm just saying 100 in Astral doesn't automatically mean that kind of prestige and reputation specifically! That's more dependent on other things, if that makes any sense. 

I think MC could totally reach that kind of "leading expert" advancement later in life, but for the timespan of the game, they're more respected for their overall feats and approached for tips not just about their specific kind of magic, but also for their other diverse skillsets and areas of expertise (mercenary work, combat with their chosen weapon, leadership decisions, what have you). Again, I could totally see someone like Ysa asking MC for tips on Elemental magic if they're strong in Elementalism, but not assuming they've based their entire career/identity around it--like approaching someone who you know to be insanely good at math and can help you rather than a professional, award-winning mathematician with a podcast about math. This is sort of rambling, but hopefully that makes sense!