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shepherds-of-haven · 4 months ago

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Hi Lena hope you've been well! Just wanted to say I've been loving the alpha and Patreon goodies (can't wait to jump Red's bones 🥰)! I had a question that I'm not sure has been answered before: For the inner circle members with their own squad of recruits to train, what is their leadership style like? (ie. if someone were to be a fly on the wall during trainings, what would they see? (the Chase scene with our squad had me SCREAMING 😳))

Hi anon, thanks for your great question! I hope you've been well too, and thank you so much for your lovely words! I'm so glad you're enjoying the alpha build and Patreon goodies, that's so motivating to hear! 🥹💖

Blade: Blade basically hand-picked his squad to create clones of himself, so he essentially has a death-squad of elite assassins who have a similar personality to him, whether due to nature or his training LOL. He's naturally pretty strict and has those rigid Ket standards of what's acceptable behavior and what's not, but because they were already so terrified of him and so intimidated and honored to have been picked by Day 1, his squad was so eager to gain his approval that they've never really had any true issues, lol. You hardly ever see him interacting with them, but he could turn his head and speak a quiet word and one of them would materialize out of thin air like a royal guard shadowing his king, lmao! The other recruits are scared of them 😭

Trouble: he's in turns quite strict with his squad and also quite friendly and jocular with them! He's just as prone to be found drinking with them as he is scaring them witless by bawling orders at them like an army commando and forcing them to sprint through mud obstacles while he's pelting them with rubber bullets. He has a surprisingly soldierly demeanor when it comes to training and field discipline, which I find hypocritical, given what a pain he is about authority and taking orders from other people and his general rebellious spirit... 😒 strangely, this hot-and-cold demeanor does not prevent his squad from being obsessed with him, lol

Tallys: Tallys has the kind of presence where she never acts any differently, no matter what situation she's in, which really makes people pay attention to her! It's kind of like those people who say something in such calm, even tones that you find yourself really leaning forward to hear them and find yourself intent and hanging on every word they say? She hardly ever raises her voice or shouts at her squad, but she doesn't really have to... her coolness makes them crave her approval so much that it's kind of a "yes mommy 🥺" energy with them lol, she only needs to communicate what she wants with a glance and they're running to do it!

Shery: she doesn't really have her own squad, she has a team of staffers who work under her! They mostly get along great, though sometimes some of them can accidentally take advantage of Shery when they're being thoughtless--it's not really malicious or on purpose, it's just that they don't really hesitate to ask her for a longer break or a day off, and sometimes that workload ends up falling on her! But overall things between them all run fairly smoothly, especially because she has other people (including Caine) who keep an eye out for that!

Riel: Riel also doesn't have his own 'squad,' per se, but a team of staffers... he basically just treats them like they're the hired help lol, he knows their names and whatnot, but he's basically the extremely busy CEO and they're just like the administrative assistants scampering after him as he strides into the office and starts rapping out orders lol!

Beyond the necessities of work, he hardly acknowledges or exchanges a word with them, but they learn so much just from watching him maneuver and think and politick lol, so they're very grateful to just be in his proximity!

Chase: Chase is extremely slack with his recruits... He teaches them the skills they need to know, and they're quite good at what they do, but the team discipline on that squad is like a 0, lol. He's done a lot of his own "teaching" and leading in Thieves Guild, taking younger or more inexperienced thieves under his wing to show them the ropes, so he's sort of not into doing the whole thing all over again, lol. To be completely honest, he basically lets his squad do whatever they want and only interacts with them during mandatory training and missions. Like a really chill TA or substitute teacher who shows up because they have to but lets you watch a movie or go hang out in the hall or something, go nuts kids, he's not really the boss of you!! As a result, his squad adores him, but they're also really chaotic partiers lol. Once in a blue moon they'll try to wrangle him like "CAPTAIN!! You promised you would be here to train us at dawn, why are you two hours late?!" "sorry guys, I got lost on the road of life~~"

Red: I feel like his entire squad is hopelessly in love with him, lol. He basically teaches them like they're his interns or teacher assistants and he's a professor; he's fairly mild-mannered and hands-off, but they do learn a lot from him and respect him immensely (to the point of practically hanging on his every word). Having his own squad is extremely low-priority for him (he prefers deploying on his own missions and focusing on his research, plus he still teaches some classes at the Circle now and then), so he often lumps them in with his classes or is on hand to advise them as they run their own missions, but he's more of an advisor or "teacher who sponsors your extracurricular club" rather than being "club president," if that makes any sense?? Like you typically go to him for help, which he's always willing to provide, rather than he's the one really pushing for more time together!

Ayla: at first she hated the idea of having her own squad of dweeby little recruits, but now that she's used to it, she relishes having someone to boss around! She trains them like a drill sergeant, barking orders and subjecting them to Mr. Miyagi-style domestic chores with a sadistic kind of relish, but they're still extremely proficient at what they do. They're also terrified of her. She does abuse her power slightly sometimes by like making them pull the weeds outside her window, but it's typically as punishment for some legitimate misdeed... typically.

Briony: her squad didn't initially take her very seriously because she came off as a bit nervous and burbly and not really an authoritative figure, and her amnesia puts her at a real disadvantage, so initially they would be like, "oh the high lord of Lancastre is in town today, I wonder if there will be trouble" Briony: "who is that :D"

So for a little while, her squad were sort of bewildered by her, and it started to become a dynamic where they were on the surface nice but somewhat condescending, like, "hey guys, could you go do so-and-so?" "...sure captain 😏 we'll get right on that!" They'd eventually do it, but they'd take their damn time, which is something Ayla, Trouble, or Blade would never tolerate, but Briony would pretend not to notice!

But then they saw her pulverize a tree with her fist for the first time (._.), and now they're very meek and obedient! Nowadays they get along well, and she treats them warmly like they're all friends, and they're pretty tight-knit, though Briony still has some trouble outright ordering them to do things rather than requesting it nicely like they're equals/comrades-in-arms... she's not fully comfortable with having command over anyone yet!

Lavinet: Lavinet, as a late-comer, actually got to pick her own squad rather than being assigned one, so she was able to avoid the inevitable resentment and defiance of a random team who probably would have doubted her skills due to her being a noble and thought she was some kind of nepo baby who bought her way in! The people she ended up picking tended to be people who appreciated and understood who she was and wanted to work with her. As a result, she's quite polite and amiable with them and doesn't have to get strict, though she secretly longs for the ability to just let loose one day and start barking orders like one of the others... That wouldn't be seemly, though! Even as an instructor and a captain, she still has to maintain her courtly composure and just delivers her orders in a calm tone (which sounds more icy and deadly when she's displeased).

Halek: squad? what squad? He already had the Black Shield Hunters, the elders, and Naolin dogging him around everywhere, now he has to babysit some snotty recruits? he can't even teach them anything, he basically just joined! 😩 he spends a lot of time dodging them and hiding places to nap, but either they or someone like Blade or Tallys go and drag him back by the ear. Eventually he had to be like, "...you really want me to train you?" "yes!" "the way I was trained to hunt demons?" "YES!" "...okay... if that's really want you want..."

*cue the most grueling, back-breaking military regiment you've ever seen* The White Order doesn't play around with how it trains its younglings, so he just applies the same techniques to his squad! If he has to be awake and suffering, so do you :') He doesn't yell at them or anything, you just look into the slight malice in his courteous smile as he asks you to get on your knees and crawl into a mysterious hole and you suddenly feel a deep, existential terror...

#Shepherds of Haven #all characters #romance options #training #recruits #the order of the shepherds #order of the shepherds #captains #captain #squad #the squad

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