April Q&A answers 🌸

This is a question for you! 😊 If you had to choose, which RO would you personally go for and why? (Either platonic or romantic is fine)

I think this has been asked once before, so my answer will probably be similar :D Uh… hard question. They all have many pros and cons going for them. I think I would get along the best with Narmer as a friend. Our personalities are somewhat similar, I think. Very stubborn, but generally quite calm and reserved. Then again, I love all of them, so I think I would get along with any one of them :D

For romantic, hm… in their current age, I'd probably choose Qenna or Narmer. Qenna has massive issues though, and I don't want to deal with those lol. If Ahmose was 15-20 years older and lose some of their excess energy, I would choose Ahmose.

For the characters! Do they prefer savory or sweet foods? (For Zaia, what did they prefer when they were alive?)

Narmer prefers meat and fish. He doesn't very much like sweet things. He sometimes eats them, a bite or two of cake or something for dessert, but in general, he is a meat eater. He also needs it because he has to maintain his strength somehow and sugar ain't gonna do that - he needs the protein.

Qenna is picky, both on their own, and because of the demon. Even before Old Narmer, Qenna already had a… let's say, 'specific' palate. Now the demon can influence their senses, including their tasting, and so sometimes he makes the food taste like ash, and so Qenna got used to not eating much in general anymore. Luckily, they don't really need it because the demon maintains their health anyway. They only need a couple of bites a day to keep up their energy.

Zaia loved cakes when they were alive. They loved baking too. They didn't do it very often because they were usually busy with their duties and studies, but when they had some free time, Zaia would bake pastries for their siblings. They also loved nuts as a snack. Now they can't eat because they wouldn't feel the taste, but spirits can somewhat smell. Or at least, they can recognize certain scents that aren't magical. If you romance Zaia and go with Tabiry to collect the provisions for the road at the Memphis mob scene, MC will notice a curious biscuit among the packages. Qenna usually buys that specifically for Zaia :)

Tabiry prefers sweet things, but she eats everything. She likes food in general, and she also eats a lot. She got used to beef and meats when she was in the King's Guard, so she still eats like that. If she had to choose though, and if she wouldn't gain weight from it, she would eat all the cakes in the world.

Ahmose has a sweet tooth. They are a bit picky, but they generally eat anything that's well made. They would definitely eat home-cooked food too, like if thief's mother would cook for them, Ahmose would gobble it up. They love cakes and fruits too. Meat is not their favorite, but for m!Ahmose, it's a must because he does sports and he needs to maintain his muscles. He eats mostly fish and beans though. F!Ahmose also prefers fish over other meats.

As for the rest of the characters… Hudjefa is a picky eater, and he prefers sweet things. Petepihu likes pastries and bread. Nedjemut is a meat lover but she likes beans and onions as well. Sesi doesn't like meat at all, and he prefers bread and fresh vegetables.

Who has the highest and the lowest spice tolerance? :3

Uuuuuuh :D I think that's very relative. I generally cook with lots of spices… compared to how everyone around me cooks. But I imagine an Indian would still think my food is tasteless. This is an interesting question though because people before modern times didn't exactly cook the same way we do now. Imported spices were very expensive in most parts of the world up until… pretty much quite recently, in the past 50-100 years.

Most spices Egyptians used were those that grew in their land. Cumin, coriander, fennel, garlic, and thyme were the spices they cooked with, but these are not what people nowadays would consider 'spicy' food. Or at least I wouldn't. They didn't know chillies at all because those are from America. The general populace didn't use oriental spices either because they were too expensive. I imagine, Narmer would have tasted some. Ahmose, definitely. Turmeric, saffron, black pepper, ginger, cinnamon, things like that, that came from Mesopotamia and India - but these were rare and you could only find them in very wealthy households.

So yes, I think none of them would tolerate spicy food at all because they simply aren't used to it. Ahmose doesn't like it very much, they prefer simpler tastes. Narmer doesn't like it either because they grew up on military rations. Tabiry likes spices, but only in moderation. Qenna is the one who has tasted and liked the most, so...

Yeah, I think the answer is Qenna for the highest general spice tolerance, but when it comes to hot spicy... Then maybe Narmer? The only hot spice I can imagine in Ancient Egypt is garlic, and Narmer definitely eats a lot of that.

Author Question! If you could for one day go to ancient Egypt where would you want to go the most and why?

Where? Not when? Haha… Hm. If it's a place, then I would go to Abydos and see the temples in their old glory. If it can be more specific, then I would go to Memphis in the year 1290 BC, on the 30th of July. If it's just for that one day, then I would like to find someone there. Not to talk to them, but only to look at them from a distance.

Very specific and mysterious answer, I know.

Character Question: if you had a free day to just do whatever what would you do?

Narmer: "I would take a bottle of wine, lock my bedroom door, and I wouldn't come out until the next day."

Qenna: "If it could be anything… then I would like to go without headaches for one day."

Zaia: "Go to the desert and watch the stars at night."

Tabiry: "Only one day? Oh, that's too short… I would go to the market, I think. Have something to eat, browse around. Then I would meet my friends and spend the evening with them. Then, at night, I would retire with a good glass of wine."

Ahmose: "I would stay in bed all day."

Character Question: how many kids do you want? 😏 (in Zaia's case how many would you adopt, I guess?)

Narmer: "Uhm… Ahmose is perfectly enough for me."

Qenna: "What makes you think the answer is not zero?"

Zaia: "None. I'm a spirit. Don't be ridiculous."

Tabiry: "At least two. Maybe more. Definitely more than one. It's lonely, being an only child. I don't want that for my children."

Ahmose: "Two or three maybe? I guess I would have to have at least two… You know, for succession and such..."

This subject will come up later in the game though :) Don't worry, if your MC wants kids, they will get kids, but I don't want to spoil the surprise ;)

Author Question! I'm curious if there were any folk tales or novels that have inspired Weeping Gods? Or even just authors you really enjoy who have inspired your writing?

For specifically Weeping Gods, there weren't really any, no. I was inspired by history. And my writing style is just… what I developed over the years, I suppose :D It's probably shaping up still because this is the first time I ever write this much in English. All my other works are in different languages, so the English prose is still something I'm working on.

There were a few other traditional books I wrote that take place in Ancient Egypt, and for this story and characters, I inspired from those, but those were also based on history, and not much else.

Although… there was one book series that I really loved when I was younger, which also has some scattered few historical elements in it, but I loved the humor and the setting in that one, although it's been almost twenty years since I read them. It's the Bartimaeus trilogy from Jonathan Stroud. If anything started off my historical type of writing, it's probably that one because that was the first book I read that had both historical and fantastical elements in it, and still wasn't boring as shit.

I love good fantasy books too, and I'm also a sci-fi lover, but there is something different about coming up with things on your own, and writing about things that actually happened. It's just… not the same as drooling over old books and doing tons and tons of research about specific historical things, you know :D I love the research part of the job, I think. It's just… I dunno, there is nothing like it. But my next book is definitely gonna be some other genre. Probably sci-fi, I'd say.

For the widower mc, will we get a chance to mention our spouse to our ROs, something something, they loved someone once but when they lost them they felt sad, hopefully mc doesnt have to say bye bye to new RO too soon or like that.

Yup! You can already talk about that subject a bit with Qenna or Tabiry in Ch5 when you go to bathe on the road from Memphis to the Faiyum. Narmer mentions it too if you are with him. They will all talk about it later when you are deeper in the romance, but the problem is not that the ROs don't want to talk about it. It's the MC who doesn't want to share it yet.

There was another Hosted game egyptian themed called temple of endless night, did it inspire some character or writing for the weeping gods?

I haven't heard of that one, is it good? :D

I usually don't read novels about Ancient Egypt on my own because most of their settings are horribly inaccurate, and it annoys me to no end. Like if I read one more time that the lord of the dead is Anubis, I'm going to look like this 😒 and close that book to never pick it up again. You don't know how many times that happened. A lot.

That's not saying this IF is one of those of course, since I haven't read it, so it could be very good! But I read many paper books about that time, and for a lot of them, it was very obvious that the author was a fan of Roman history and simply tried to implement that knowledge into an Ancient Egyptian setting, which is pretty much the worst thing you can do because the two cultures were wildly different. So I don't read Egyptian themed novels anymore. Unless it comes highly recommended from someone who is NOT a Roman Empire fan.

The last thing I've seen that had Egyptian themes was Marvel's Moon Knight series. That was… kinda good? I think? There were a few confusing things in the plot, and a few pretty large cliches (and also, what is Ethan Hawke doing there???), but overall, it was not bad. I started enjoying it towards the end of the first season, although the way they depict Khonsu still annoys me because first of all, they keep misspelling his name, and second, he didn't have a skeleton head. In reality, he was usually depicted as either a child mummy, or an adult with a normal falcon head. And so if they wanted to make him look creepy, I don't know why they didn't go for the child corpse. That's a lot creepier than a big dude with a fantasy bird skull that looks more like a stork than anything else. End of rant.

If I remember correctly, you mentioned thinking about these characters in a modern setting on your Tumblr a while back. Would you mind giving us a little description of how you'd see the Weeping Gods gang doing in modern day?

Waaaaaa I have so many ideas for it!

Narmer would have to wear glasses, for one. His eyes are not very good. They are not bad bad, but he would need glasses in modern times. I imagine, if he wasn't arrested already for civil unrest and speaking out against the government, he would be a university teacher. What would he teach, you ask? History, I think. Sort of like an Indiana Jones style, except without the adventures because once he finishes his job, he would go home and would only go out again if he must. He would also be divorced. He would have lost the child placement battle in court because he's a big buff man and Nefru is a good manipulator, but he would meet up with Ahmose very regularly and get them to live with him later.

Aaaah… Qenna, my dear, is quite spoilery. But Qenna would live alone in a big house in the countryside, and wouldn't work. Their hobby would be shooting at pigeons from their window, and going to the pub at weekends and getting into fistfights with the local drunks. They would sometimes drag Narmer out too, who would also get drunk and beat up the drunks, then Narmer and Qenna would get arrested together and spend the night in the clink, absolutely sloshed, reminiscing about those good old times when they were both young and happy.

Zaia… would have to be a normal human. There is no more magic in the world in modern times, and so spirits can't manifest anymore. The most you would get here is an occasional ghost. So Zaia would have to be reborn into a normal body. They would be in university because Zaia is around their early twenties. And before you ask, no, their teacher wouldn't be Narmer because Zaia would study economy and commerce, and they would also be acing it. They would graduate with honors, and then they would go to work as CEO at one of their family's big companies. Then, at weekends, they would go with Qenna and Narmer to the pub because I imagine they would know Qenna through each other's families. Zaia would be the one to call the cops on them once the the two start acting rowdy.

Tabiry would live in France. She just has that French vibe, I think. She would be working in one of the family businesses. I imagine her father would own a martial arts dojo or something, and her mother would have a flower shop. Tabiry would be working shifts at both of them, but she would also secretly try to get into the fashion industry. She would have probably met Qenna first, sometime in the past, when Qenna was in Paris, and the two kept in contact. She would be the one to keep kicking Qenna in the ass to do better and get their life back on track.

Ahmose would be finishing high school and going to university. They would live with their mom, but they would be planning to move out once they start university. I think they would go to the same school that Narmer works at, but Ahmose would probably either be into sports, or arts. F!Ahmose would definitely be going for an arts degree. Qenna would be their god-parent, and Ahmose would probably spend the summers with Narmer at Qenna's place in the countryside. Narmer would be teaching Ahmose to drive, and in the evenings, Ahmose would sneak out with Qenna and they would definitely crash the car together because Qenna doesn't have a driver's license either.

Do the characters have any special little traditions that they like to do for themselves on their birthdays or is it more like "whatever the day brings" kind of day for them?

Narmer's birthdays are big national events, so he would have to participiate in those. Or at least show up for a little bit. Otherwise, he would prefer to spend the day alone or with his loved ones, but that usually isn't an option because he always has work to do.

Qenna doesn't celebrate their birthday anymore. They would prefer to forget it even exists.

Zaia doesn't know how old they are, and their estimation for their birthday is very vague. They don't remember the exact date, and the Akkadian calendar was different than the Egyptian one, so they actually couldn't tell which day it was exactly, even if they remembered it.

Tabiry likes to celebrate her birthday with family. She has this tradition that over the celebration, she would make a list of all the things she is grateful for during this year, and all the things she thinks she improved at or matured in. Then she would share her hopes for the next year and the areas she would like to improve on. She usually does this alone because most of the time, she isn't in Thebes for her birthdays, so she can't be with her family.

Ahmose's birthdays also include big parties in the palace. Ahmose would be up since dawn, being excited and participating in whatever plans the party organizers cooked up. As they grow older though, they will start prefering a much quieter setting.

For the last question, I made a chart instead, because that's a lot more fun: