i love interactive fiction so much, and i know that authors have a lot of different little details to add, but something really glaring and alienating i have discovered while reading interactive fiction works is while authors will include the option for an MC to be POC / black, they are still very much white / fair-skinned coded. in one popular IF work, the MC has a biological family, and the character portraits they used were all fair-skinned people despite having the option for a dark skin MC. i can’t tell you how many times i’ve come across this problem and it truly breaks immersion because how in the world does that work if MC is not adopted? if i choose for my MC to have dark skin, and select a choice that is shy or embarrassed in nature, the writing goes on a tangent about how the character is blushing like a summer tomato, or have red faces, or they “know their face must appear visibly flushed” to those around them.
while there are black people (with lighter skin who visibly blush,) this isn’t true for darker skintones. nervousness, shyness, and embarrassment can be described and written in so many other ways. i understand that most writers can’t help but write from their own experience, identity or backgrounds, but i really encourage authors step away from using these kind of descriptions to portray these emotions. it’s not really inclusive at all, and is more harmful than good because including these types of descriptors really makes it feel like dark and brown skintone options were just after thoughts.