#ro:august

Ohhh wait I love this

Jasper has like four separate costumes every year and all are basic clothes to somewhat resemble a popular character while showing skin. Think those videos where someone says ‘spongebob’ and it’s a yellow crop top and brown miniskirt. Maybe one ‘real’ costume that they bought from like spirit halloween lol.

August does something low effort like plastic vampire teeth and all black. Or a character that he has to put very little work into looking like, like Jack Frost lol

Icarus, assuming they’re in a body that can wear costumes, has one really good specific costume that they reuse every year and god forbid someone make a comment about it. They gather like one new accessory per year, why do you think it’s so detailed??

El does something historical that allows her to wear a flowy dress and lots of accessories. Pirate, princess, pilgrim, plague doctor….

Omg I'm answering the space cow one because I think that's so funny lol (though 'would you love me if i was a horrible worm monster' gives it a run for its money)

Jasper: is normal about it. Yes, they love you space cow or not. They would spray paint you to keep you safe and identify you and visit you on their ship. If a predator gets you, though, that's a bit out of their paygrade...

August: May take a bit of prodding him, but yes. If you ask him to expand on that, he mutters something about how it wasn't so hard to love one before, so now that it's actually you there's little problem at all. You will be grand and glorious

Icarus: Coin toss if they'll ignore you or not. You'll have to delve past a few grouchy layers of, "love is simply chemical firings coagulating together" before they say that it makes little difference whether you are human or not to them, as long as you are you. Indirect, but it's something!

El: She seems a little too into it to be honest. Starts asking if you would let her live inside of you and do all requisite survival things and she would love to hear your heartbeat from the inside instead of muffled by your chest. Suffice it to say, yes (probably)

Favorite character to write: Icarus. I think they're different from humanity and the player in a way that makes it really fun to write dialogue. Just squirm through their mind, you know?

Least favorite to write: I wouldn't say I have one. They're all varying degrees and easy and hard, but that's answered below...

Most frustrating to write: El. There's a lot to juggle when it comes to her personality and what fuels what she says. I've probably rewritten her dialogue/gotten stuck on what she'd say next the most.

Character who surprised you the most (whatever reason) : Jasper. They were probably the least defined, character-wise, before this. Plus their personality is quite different from anything I've written before, so everything about writing them is new.

Character you hope people will like: All of them!! But if that's a copout, then specifically... August seems to be quite popular, at least judging from my asks/interactions/tags, so I'm glad people like him so much. He's my personal favorite romance archetype when I play IFs too. Love a religious repressed man

Character you worry people might hate: Hard to say, and also can't say much. Jasper, maybe... or El.

Any characters that are buzzing about at the back of your mind, but have no place in the story (yet) ? : The elephant in the room has arrived. T lovers, they'll get plenty of spotlight soon, I promise.

Any characters you wonder might be better suited in a different story? : Not at all! I think they all fit quite neatly in this world.

Character you want to be friends with: T, El, Icarus(if they'd tolerate that lol). Ami and Cato, maybe.

Character you'd avoid IRL: Mmmmm I'd probably give up on cracking August immediately after meeting him. I'm probably too introverted to really enjoy Jasper too, but that's not on them.

Thanks for the ask! I originally wrote like a little paragraph mini-scene for all of them but guess who forgot to save draft. So this will be less than it once was, but that also means less potential for spoilers, so maybe a win...

Jasper would probably be in a situation of their own making - say, convicted for a crime that they did do - and watch as everyone turns their backs on them. Their crew, Icarus, society as a whole, choosing to forget about their existence.

August's wouldn't always have been this, obviously, but at the moment his worst nightmare would be finding out that His Grace is in fact real. That all this was some sort of test, that he failed to prove his belief, that he threw Him away so easily, instead of staying devout.

Icarus would never admit this, but they do fear being plugged in. Being reintegrated into the mainframe, subsumed by greater consciousness. It would be a good thing, totally, to return to who they once were - it's not like their current consciousness carries much of value - but there is something strange about being forcibly, irrevocably different.

El dreams of having to wholly depend upon someone, say in a life-or-death situation, and being turned away. Putting her trust into a person and being summarily proven wrong, maybe in a humiliating way.

This will sound so silly but my friends and I came up with a wild symbolic theory because we love fucked up religions and we went all "Hear me out…"

So here it is:

His Grace (our GOAT) as the False God, the cultists and their Commune (/affectionate) are basically Babylon worshipping said False God, Ic(arus) as a False Prophet (I went a bit on a weaker link of having Ic also be similar to Whore of Babylon in terms of lying and leading "God's People" astray through lies but its Weaker connection) and ROs are Four Horsemen of Apocalypse based on our thoughts and noticing of character's traits/behaviors across the routes.

August - Death (of religion/faith/god and rebirth found in MC if going on that route), J - Famine (we have Thoughts on the Lying Liar Pants on Fire), El - Hunger/Conquest (wish to learn/know/hunger for knowledge and picking ppl apart), and T as War because we also have Thoughts about 'em based on the demo like >:)

Hope you're having a great day and thanks for writing this awesome IF! Excited to witness the development, updates, and going insane over it. Toodaloo~

Ooooo, this is one of the most fascinating messages I've received. I'm very glad you enjoyed, and love to hear your interpretation of everything! This makes me sound so weird but one of my favorite compliments is people saying that they felt grossed out/horrified lol. When I'm writing I have a lot of existential moments that make me question what I'm writing even counts as horror, and the little voice in my mind goes 'okay so make it meatier'.

There are already a few little bits of jealousy flavor text in the demo, because I love that type of stuff, but here's some elaboration.

August gets pretty jealous and also pretty insecure. He leans more towards the sad, mopey sort than the possessive type. The type to oscillate between drawing back into his shell and also barely holding back the urge to cling to the player at all moments.

Jasper doesn't really get jealous. Deeper in the relationship it definitely happens, trending towards possessive, but it takes a bit. At the moment, if they see the player flirting with someone else, it's just 'haha that's funny, what a flirt.' They can't really judge, given their normal habits.

El probably gets jealous the least out of all of the ROs. She actually enjoys the thrill of the competition a little bit. If it really escalates then she might get a bit annoyed, but her way of coping is to begin to try and make the player jealous in turn.

T acts placid and secure and fine, but they get the most jealous. Part of it is the need to prove superiority, part is plain jealousy. If there's a notable romantic rival, they're going to make the player choose right then and there, and/or they'll do something that's... probably not good for the other person's health. Whether physical or mental.

Icarus gets jealous under a deep, deep layer of denial and 'that must be a malfunctioning circuit' type logic. They're already quite prone to jealousy - case in point, feelings about their predecessor - so that carries over to romance. Will wax poetic to the player about this strange, uncomfortable feeling and then vehemently deny it's jealousy if suggested.