(1/3) Hey, Playersexual Anon here. I really appreciate that you took the time to address my question. I'm a longtime player (4+ years), but I don't often interact w/the fandom; I don't have a Tumblr account. But I do sometimes browse to see Choices discourse and you're definitely right that many straight players say their favorite LIs aren't queer, I saw this a lot w/Ethan for example. So I understand your issues with the term now and how it's weaponized against queer, especially bi, players.
Sorry again for the delay in responding, anon! Loads of IRL stuff happening this side so wasn't able to write much or go on my blog. I'm glad you never engaged in the disagreeable behaviour that I've seen in other stans, and you seem to be observant enough that even while not interacting with fandom you were able to notice some of these things. You're right that the original sin here, really, is PB and the way they make a song and dance of their inclusiveness while engaging in writing that really doesn't do queer characters any favours.
My feelings about customizable characters...are a little bit more complicated. I agree that, the way PB uses them now, they're more band-aid for actual representation - they exist for PB to claim diversity, without having to ever do the work (I mean, this is work they hardly even do for default CoC!). So I can understand why it's popular to dislike customizable characters or paint them with a broad brush. But here too, I feel (and here I'm not talking about you - but more about the fandom so far) that many people miss how we got to this point, and fandom's role in how we see customizable characters treated.
When PB started using customizable characters (Liam was the first race customizable one, and Hayden was the first to be both race and gender customizable), while there was considerable excitement, fandom was also engaging constantly in what I call a "preference heirarchy". In books where there was a default white person, or a default CoC who was exoticizable, customizable characters faced impossible levels of scrutiny, or were constantly derided no matter what they did. They fared much better in three instances:
1. When there was more than one customizable character (particularly by race. Eg. MTFL, TRM)
2. When they were the only (optional) white character in a sea of CoCs (eg. Bloodbound)
3. When the character was a default race was black 😣 (look no further than Platinum!).
But when they were introduced, they were often not always the pet fave of the teams (who would lean towards the white/exoticizable brown male LI) and the fandoms would either write them off as "boring" without knowing much about them, or drag them down for every. single. thing. they. did. Liam, for instance, was constantly labelled a "cheater" for wanting to continue his relationship with the MC while trapped in an engagement his father had manipulated him into (with his fiancee's consent, mind you! AND he never even had a relationship with said fiancee!!) and fandom had a long, long history of shifting the goalposts with this character. I've lost count of the number of PM stans who falsely claimed Hayden had no variations after the first few chapters, who compared Hayden to a toaster, and who had a problem with Hayden's very justifiable outburst at the group in Book 2 Ch 6. These are just the two most visible examples.
If we're really going to talk about the present cookie-cutter nature of the current crop of customizable characters, or how shady it is that PB is using them as rep, maybe the fandom should take a long, hard look at how they treated them when they were in the same book as other white LIs, or LIs they could grossly objectify. They didn't identifiably act like CoCs even back then (and were in most cases still white coded) but the fandom didn't hesitate to treat them badly.
Whenever I play Sims, the part I enjoy so much is making the sims. I also like the Episodes apps- but again, lots of times I just want to make the characters. I looked online to find something that would let me do just that, but I couldn't find something good. It showed me things like Gaia and Zwinky, which are kind of the style Im going for, but they're not apps and they're also not really very free. It also showed me things that let you make extremely basic avatars: roblox, bitmoji, and Mii looking things. Mii is decent, but I'd like something more like the simulation games. But again, I'm not looking for something that lets you create one character and then go get a job or find a boyfriend or slay a dragon or fulfill random quests. I just want something that lets me customize things enough to let me make people that look like people, and will let me create different ethnicities and styles by customizing eyes, brows, hair color and style, lips, face shape, etc. And it has to be one that lets me make as many as I want, like Mii Maker or Sims. Also Id like it to be an app as opposed to a website, but if that website has a mobile version, that could work I guess. Anyone know of something?
