I'm a light tan and have been for a long while (lack of sun), and also half-Thai. My characters intentionally range but I have a strong preference for the dark-skinned, light haired types. It's purely aesthetic, at least in my case. I typically build them based first on something I don't feel I see much of (class/race/clan), second avoiding traits I've made on previous characters or that I've seen a lot of, then third straight on my favorite face and colorations of that race, clan, and class(es) combo.Â
For my first roe, I went dark-red with white hair. For my highlander I went dark brown with blonde hair. For my lalafell it was dark skin dark hair. For my miqo'te I went grey-ish blue skin and blue hair. For my Midlander I went with pale white skin and tealish hair. And finally for my newest roegadyn it's white skin white hair.Â
I do prefer dark skin because make up, tattoos and lip colors tend to show up better on them. The pale skin tends to make them look faded out and there's less impact with many of the lighter colors while the darker colors all look grey or black and smudged.
So for me there's no correlation between my ethnicity and my preferred in-game skin color (except that I'm so used to seeing it that I sort of avoid it?). I think since there isn't a lot of revealed prejudice based on people of varying skin tones (as opposed to varying clans who can have the exact same skin tones in some cases), I'm not sure I could see there being a more emotional empathy unless there's just a preference to have your character look like you, which is great! I think it's nice to have an avatar of yourself in a game especially if you have an easy time not taking things that happen to your character too personally, out of character. For some of us, or at least me, when you have a lot of yourself in your character it becomes harder to separate your emotions so focusing on what I do while I'm creating them helps to create that distance in the first place...
If any of that makes sense.
TL;DR: While not everyone is bleeding in through their character based on some stronger connections felt by choosing to make the character's skin tone closer to their own, I suppose it exists as a bond for some people. More likely I think what we find visually appealing to put into our characters often goes along with what we find visually appealing IRL. That, in turn, can often be based on the palette range of the people we're most often spending our time with and admiring on a regular basis, or they can be the exact opposite.Â
For instance, I was raised around my family and their friends who were mostly Thai with light-medium tan skin (Central people) and I'm obsessed now with any pigmentation from pale skin and freckles to the darkest of colors, except for my own. I find all of them beautiful-- but I'm so used to seeing the slight variations of my skin that I'm sort of tired of the brown hair light-tan skin and don't really want to see it in my characters. So... even my Doman is pale and blue-haired.
For my first roe, I went dark-red with white hair. For my highlander I went dark brown with blonde hair. For my lalafell it was dark skin dark hair. For my miqo'te I went grey-ish blue skin and blue hair. For my Midlander I went with pale white skin and tealish hair. And finally for my newest roegadyn it's white skin white hair.Â
I do prefer dark skin because make up, tattoos and lip colors tend to show up better on them. The pale skin tends to make them look faded out and there's less impact with many of the lighter colors while the darker colors all look grey or black and smudged.
So for me there's no correlation between my ethnicity and my preferred in-game skin color (except that I'm so used to seeing it that I sort of avoid it?). I think since there isn't a lot of revealed prejudice based on people of varying skin tones (as opposed to varying clans who can have the exact same skin tones in some cases), I'm not sure I could see there being a more emotional empathy unless there's just a preference to have your character look like you, which is great! I think it's nice to have an avatar of yourself in a game especially if you have an easy time not taking things that happen to your character too personally, out of character. For some of us, or at least me, when you have a lot of yourself in your character it becomes harder to separate your emotions so focusing on what I do while I'm creating them helps to create that distance in the first place...
If any of that makes sense.
TL;DR: While not everyone is bleeding in through their character based on some stronger connections felt by choosing to make the character's skin tone closer to their own, I suppose it exists as a bond for some people. More likely I think what we find visually appealing to put into our characters often goes along with what we find visually appealing IRL. That, in turn, can often be based on the palette range of the people we're most often spending our time with and admiring on a regular basis, or they can be the exact opposite.Â
For instance, I was raised around my family and their friends who were mostly Thai with light-medium tan skin (Central people) and I'm obsessed now with any pigmentation from pale skin and freckles to the darkest of colors, except for my own. I find all of them beautiful-- but I'm so used to seeing the slight variations of my skin that I'm sort of tired of the brown hair light-tan skin and don't really want to see it in my characters. So... even my Doman is pale and blue-haired.
