Gender locking romances, but not player characters?

[RenaB]

@idonotlikeusernames

True, but the truly great stories do use little things to differentiate them. So they can still fill the same role in the story yet use the subtle differences to enhance the character. I think Suzanne/Simon in XoR are a good examples of that. However this isn’t necessary if you don’t want to as an author and in many cases just flipping those few variables creates perfectly passable characters.

I’ll be honest in that I haven’t read XoR (less of a game person, more of a story person- and though the story sounds absolutely fantastic it also seems to be more game heavy and, if I’m being wholly honest, I’m terrible at games so…) So I can’t speak to how its differences aid the story. I do think that adding in minor differences for characters in which, well, anything about them changes can be useful- but only if it makes sense in the context of the world.

So, for example, if you’re creating a truly equal fictional world where gender has no effect on the story it would make sense for a gender flippable character to have, again, no effect on the story. Sure, some minor details like maybe appearance might be worked in but even then I don’t think necessarily has to be to get the same effect.

Ex. the description: “$!{npc_hishertheir} short, black hair dances around ${npc_hishertheir} sharp face.” would work for establishing a character of any gender, really. (Apparently it won’t show the little sign at the beginning but just imagine that’s coded correctly, haha.)

As for wording and gender I’ve already given my whole spiel over on here (which makes this the second time I’ve linked this old thing of mine in reference to something like this, aha. I just don’t want to repeat myself.).

Gendered language (if we know it, we can avoid it)

Interesting article, but before the gender of the character, I think, you really have to consider the personality of the character as well as the tone of the scene. So take “chuckle”, as was mentioned in the article. Say you’ve got “chuckle”, “titter”, and “laugh”. What fits best really depends on how you want to portray the character, and the scene in which the action takes place. “____ sat in the stands, chuckling at your failure.” “____ sat in the stands, tittering at your failure.” “____…

@idonotlikeusernames

Although even @ParrotWatcher had some, imho valid, critiques about how lack of emphasis on the subtle differences made the male mc in both Affairs of the Court and a Midsummer Night’s dream feel a bit off.

However those issues may also indicate more of a problem with world/society building then they do with characters themselves.

I can’t remember much from Midsummer that you might be referencing but from what I remember of Affairs of the Court and what I’ve heard that definitely sounds like more a world building problem than a character problem.