#sunbound asks

[rosygames]

are there any fun facts we can know about the ros and the band? they're all so adorable

thank you!

oof, i'm struggling to think of a different fun fact for every single one so i'll just list off what i have currently.

angel loves horror movies and always picks the grossest and longest ones when it's their turn to pick for movie night just to see the other members suffer (they definitely cackle while watching)

jiwon is a mess in the kitchen and is banned by the members to ever hold a knife, devan is the one who cooks for the members. despite owning a family restaurant, cloud actually also sucks at cooking (they're learning now!). saint cooks sometimes too but only if they're in the mood for it and there's music playing. cooking becomes an event when saint is in on it so it's for special days and most days devan kicks them out of the kitchen for bothering them.

mitsuki used to have a ranking of their members to determine who their current favorite was and while the others liked to pretend they didn't care, they'd compete for the top spot. the truth is, the ranking is bullshit and randomized and mitsuki just do it so the others would dote on them more.

kila is a great cook and is good at housework but they pretend like they're spoiled and clueless so no one can order them around. they're also the complete opposite of jiwon in terms of relationship to religion--they fucking hate religion.

valentine has never had a relationship before meeting sparky so their views on love and romance were idealistic--a surprising fact considering how cold they come off at first. they have a collection of romance books (might have some of tatum's there).

tatum takes a lot of inspiration from icaris songs to write. their writing playlists have plenty of icaris songs and you know that game where someone has an artist's discography on shuffle and someone else has to guess the song quickly? tatum will probably be able to guess all of icaris' songs in the first few seconds but no one will ever know cause they would never answer. you think their niece is the biggest fan of icaris? think again, it's actually tatum themself.

well look at that, i did get to sort of add fun facts for everyone. thank you for the ask, anon!

[rosygames]

Hello, how old is Sparky and the ROs in the present time?

the characters’ ages at the start of the past timeline and at the start of the present timeline, in age order (adding the rest of the members too):

valentine: 21 years old at the start but 24/25 when they meet sparky (sparky is 20/21). 35 during the reunion. kila: 20 at the start, but 23/24 when they meet sparky (sparky is 20/21). 34 at the reunion. saint: 18 and a half at the start, 32 and a half at reunion. jiwon: 17 and a half at the start, 31 and a half at reunion. sparky: almost 17 at the start, almost 31 at reunion tatum: 16/17 at the start, 30/31 at reunion devan and angel: 16 years old at the start, 30 years old at reunion (angel is three months younger so turning 16, turning 30) cloud: 15 years old at the start, 29 years old at the reunion mitsuki: 14 years old at the start, would’ve been 28 by reunion.

the “start” is predebut, so a full year before their debut at 2012. present time is 2025, 2 full years before their actual 15th anniversary. aaaand i just realized i worded the main post wrong because their album would’ve been released in 2026… the actual 15th anniversary will be their last concert lol… i’ll deal with that later. timelines are confusing for at this time even though i have it all written down.

but yeah, hope that isn’t as confusing to you as it is to me, and unless i majorly confused myself while writing those down i think those are accurate.

thank you for the question!

[rosygames]

Would it be possible for our MC to crossdress/dress as the opposite gender? If so, would that change anything with how our fans perceive us? Like a male MC dressing femininely while on stage or out in public

during icaris' 7 years and fully cross dress? no. possibly only for special occasions like a special performance or a gag at their variety show. nothing that can be treated as serious. near the end of their original run though, sparky can be a little more ambiguous. nothing too much that can't be explained away with "fashion sense" but after icaris wins against their previous management, they get a tiny bit more freedom. fans just think it's fashionable and "so gender" but a lot do not take it as something serious or as actual expression.

in present time, yes sort of. i'm not restricting the outfit choices by gender. as for the fans, it won't change how they view sparky that much unless i guess sparky was almost rigidly feminine or masculine in the past and they'd changed almost 180 degrees, then there will be a few who "miss the old sparky". some will always think it's cringe or weird but they'd be fewer than the supportive ones. just your usual from fandoms. sparky has a pretty big fandom so there will be a lot of polarizing opinions on them regardless of what they actually do in life.

thank you for the question!

[rosygames]

ik you made a post answering a question a little like this one but like,, pre hiatus sparky being this beautiful woman only to transition into some dude with (maybe.) a beard.. idk even if that extreme of a cosmetic turnaround isn’t available that’s what i imagine my sparky to be like. the difference would also be a little funny to me 💔

i mean i always thought that people who were beautiful as a certain gender most often ended up being beautiful after transitioning too anyway. but if you mean like... a very feminine sparky with softer and more elegant features showing up looking all rugged and very masculine post transition during the reunion then i get it.

if you're asking what the fans would think, then some of those who grew up having a huge crush on sparky would likely be disappointed and a part of that group would likely resent the new sparky -- especially those who are more conservative. but a good amount of fans also grew up listening to icaris' songs about self identity and finding yourself, applied it to things like gender and sexuality and really found comfort in the group, and they're definitely much more supportive of this sparky. icaris has a pretty wide range of personalities and characters in their fandom but i imagine that due to icaris being an idol group, their songs, their advocacies, and some of the members hinting at their own sexualities throughout the years, a huge, huge, huge part of their fandom is more open minded and supportive of these things.

a sparky who went extremely private after hiatus only to show up as a transitioned sparky out of the blue for the reunion is also likely to get a lot of buzz -- both positive and negative.

[rosygames]

I really enjoyed playing the demo and seeing all of the characters in action, despite you releasing it early. I also love your dedication to the date 😆

I didn't know if you wanted feedback or anything, so if you don't please ignore the second half of this message (you also don't have to publicly respond to it if you don't want to). But I figured I'd send some just in case. While I really enjoyed the entire interview, I do think that it's a bit weird that the band just goes straight back into goofing around with one another and their old dynamic. After not speaking to one another for several years, and possibly going through personality changes (and/or becoming a hermit) after Mitsuki's death, I just think it's slightly unrealistic.

thank you, i'm glad you liked it! and yes, i was very much attached to the date lol i was going to do anything and everything to get something out by 7-7.

as for the dynamics--this interview was done around midway through the entire reunion. they'd already dropped the first album and are dropping the second one, and they're done with the us tour so they're not fresh off everything.

but also! the feature article does not in any way represent how they actually are in real life. the writer is a fan who would absolutely hyperfocus on random touches and think it means the band is all good with each other. and while they're trying to be more "truthful", the pr training is so deeply ingrained in their souls that the members often have a polite face towards the media no matter what. it's also why there's a choice for sparky to say "i have nothing nice to say" about mitsuki's death and the article just goes on as if sparky not saying anything is normal.

they do not go straight back to being okay with each other, i can assure you that. jiwon had a lot of begging and manipulating to do to even convince some of the other members to join the reunion, and plenty of deep, buried hurts will still come out all throughout the book.

basically, i'm trying to play around with public personas/images and their private selves so don't take any feature article or fan comment or whatever at face value!

thank you so much though. i do like feedback and take note of them.

[rosygames]

The demo is SO good, I literally fell in love and was so sad to see it end. I literally can’t wait for the upcoming chapters! Tysm. ALSO I’m pretty sure it’s bc I don’t read well but can you make it more clear who’s re the ROs? Bc if I’m not mistaken one of the group members are married and they even have a kid, which brings me to my next question, is there mpreg in this world?? If so then I’m already giggling and screaming🙈🥹

thank you so much!

and don't worry it's not your fault, there are currently no indicators on who the member ros are because i couldn't find the space for it on the feature article. it'll be pretty clear once chapter 1 drops because there's a part there where sparky can reunite with each of the 5 ros! but to just list them out, it's jiwon and saint out of icaris, then kila (rival), valentine (actor sparky had a pr relationship with), and tatum (childhood friend who was also a trainee, now takes care of their niece who's a huge icaris fan). the last three haven't been introduced yet but they will be there for chapter 1

unfortunately, mpreg does not exist in this world since it's contemporary 😓 angel either has a surrogate or a sperm donor depending on their gender and they have two beautiful babies right now!

thank you for the question!

[rosygames]

heyy i was just beginning the demo and i love it so far. but i selected i am non binary and the group is a girl band and then when they're introducing the members they use he/him pronouns?

oof, i was missing a *return tag on the they_pronouns segment and it flows into the past_he_pronouns segment! thank you for letting me know, everyone who picked they/them as pronouns probably got he/him for the other members. should work properly now!

thank you!

[rosygames]

is ji-won also closed off/cold towards the members in the past or just to the fans?

also maybe you could give people the option to whether they want to be out or closeted during the present? you could always try and code it so that you choose your pronouns for the past and then choose your pronouns later on again for the present. if people choose that they're still closeted then maybe you could figure out a way to use the past pronouns still, but if they're out then you could use different present pronouns. either way, there are a lot of templates and resources on here that you can find for interactive fiction coding (+ you can ask other authors for help) both for choicescripts and itch.io

jiwon starts off closed off and distant to everyone, even mitsuki. they take their role as a leader pretty seriously but they're warmer during the present timeline.

the original plan was to give reader the choice to be closeted in the present in terms of both gender identity and sexuality! but then we already have two sets of pronouns for trans sparkys (present and past) and if they're closeted then i also have to code it so that their public pronouns might be different from their private pronouns but also, is sparky out to the members? because there's been distance before the reunion so it'd make sense if they weren't and they might not use the same pronouns with the members.

let's say we have past_pronouns, present_pronouns, and public_pronouns. public_pronouns can be the same as either past_pronouns or present_pronouns depending on if sparky is out or not, but they will be coded differently even if they appear similarly to readers. i can either have "public_pronouns" variable or code it as "@{trans_out present_pronouns|past_pronouns} and do the same for their name. take into account how some sparkys might be out to members and others might not be (this is currently the case for sexuality but i also haven't coded it yet), i will also have to add a switch in the code for if they use public_pronouns with members or present_pronouns, so it might look like: @{out_to_members present_pronouns|past_pronouns} every single time their pronouns are used.

it can be done, but it's a lot more code than usual that it currently doesn't look feasible since i do all the writing and coding myself.

thank you for the ask!