I always end up making sort of my ideal self, or as close as I can. Tall, lean, cute perky small to medium boobs, cute tight little butt, abs, pale af. I never know what to do with the hair because I end up not really liking any of the options, but I always go for completely black or completely white hair, depending on what looks best with the games graphics. It does always bother me how limited the body mod options are. If they have piercings at all you get to choose from like 3 or 4 premade stacks that are usually completely uninspired and the only customization is the color. Tattoos are almost as bad, but they’re usually really boring or overcomplicated and if you’re lucky enough to be able to pick more than one it’s obvious which ones go together because all the others clash. And the face tattoos, like hardly anyone in real life gets a face tattoo and in some games that’s literally all you get. I dream of the day I find a game with the piercing and tattoo customization I long for. Alas I might need to make it myself if I ever want it to exist.

As for how it’s changed, I started choosing women characters. Before I cracked my egg I always made a nonhuman male character if I could (the less human the better), or a generic stripped down male if there were no nonhuman options. I was pretty deep in my gender mask for a long time, not even letting myself act feminine in perfect privacy. I really wish there were more games with gender nonconforming customization options because while I like playing as a woman in games, it just doesn’t hit the same playing as a cis woman as it does playing as a trans woman.