A small question about Episode features requests!

Community General Chat
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Hello, fellow episodians !:wave:

I saw that the diversity and features requests on Epsiode are a delicate topic, but don’t take me wrong I’m not trying to fuel the drama or anything. I’m just asking because I don’t understand everything about what’s happening.

So I read many post where people asked for more diversity in the features Episode releases. Features like hair, facial features, lip colors ( feature really asked for ), clothes and else.
I also see the word POC used a lot. :thinking:

My mother tongue isn’t english so maybe I’m missing points because of this.

I can understand people’s frustation because it’s true, Episode made a thread about diversity at the beginning of 2017 where they promised many things and they might have done less than what they promised, so many people were left disatisfied. They got people’s hopes up and left them disappointed in the end.
They made a mistake. :sweat:
I can’t say that I agree with how some people show their discontent, but it’s only my opinion. Everyone is free to react as they want. :grin:

What I don’t understand is: POC means People Of Color. From what I read, it means people who “aren’t white”. What kind of “white”, exactly ? Is it only about skin color or is race involved too ?
I read many posts asking for more lip colors for POC. But the current lip colors suit light skinned asians ( for example, japanses ) pretty well. Are they considered “white” ? So does POC mean only dark skinned people ?

I’m asking because I’m really confused about this. :sweat_smile:

I also see many posts about having not enough features to represent dark skinned people. Like curly hair or facial features. I have to say I was a bit shocked by the last one.

Are people saying there are specific features based on the color of your skin ? Like maybe, for example, “white people” have straight noses and “black people” have full lips ?
Like… aren’t those stereotypes ? :flushed:

If I misunderstood that, please explain, because I’m so lost right now.

To me, there are no exclusive features for any kind of people. Everybody can have curly hair or full lips. If people meant kinky hair, then yeah, I can understand a bit more. It’s true many black people have kinky hair.
But you can’t tell me that you can’t represent black people with the facial features Episode gave us until now. I’m not talking about hair, but about the faces.

More lip colors for dark skinned people, we need them. I agree. But please define POC. Because you can make, in fact, a story with diversity without any dark skinned people in it. Europeans, Asians, Africans, Americans, etc… you can all represent them without including dark skinned people. And the other way is possible, you can represent all those without light skinned people in it. For me, It would still be diversity.

But is the diversity people are talking about skin colors or about cultures and countries ?

And the clothes… What clothes exactly are asked for ? Clothing like traditional outfits ? Like the Sari for indians ?
Because then, I have to say that no “white people” traditional clothes are out in the Episode portal either.
If it’s about modest clothing, for muslims characters, I agree that we need less revealing clothes. And long skirts ( I really want those). And also jewish outifts and also crosses for christians people.
It’s part of the diveristy.

Same for the body types. Even if I think it might be harder for the Episode team to make those, I really would like to have boys without abs in my story and girls with more curves. :blush:

So, those are my thoughts. All my questions are genuine and I really would like some answers. :smile:

I know it’s a sensitive topic, so let’s try to stay civils, please. I’m ready to close this topic if it gets out of hand. :sweat_smile:

Thank you !

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personally, this is not a thing I think about. but I have always been the kind person to just work with what I have and get the best out of that,

I am a sims player too and I often see people there complain to there are not enough poc opinions where I think there is a lot and they keep adding. last year they added four new black skin colours and people still complain that it is not enough.

many just want they dont think about it takes time and money to make. and they are doing there best.

also the clothes i agree. with that we need some more modest clothing.

the body type one personally think is stupid cause it would take so much money and effort to get it to function with evry clothing item. episode is not proggramed in a way that could easy be done.

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I was born in England but my entire family is Japanese, we celebrate Japanese traditions (like children’s day, which is the best) and my mother tongue is Japanese. I guess my skin color is white, but like… am I a poc by race? Confuzzled over here as well. I consider myself as white, though.

People are talking about diversity for everything, pretty much. For sexuality, nationalities, skin colours, gender, everything, I guess.

I do agree on this. My old teacher was like 99% South African and white, but the students at my old school bullied her because ‘she wasn’t allowed to be white’. She was my favourite teacher and helped me overcome so many problems, but unfortunately, she left the school :sob:

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I understand your mindset and I respect that. But I can also understand if people are thinking differently.
As for me, I also think that Episode needs time to develope more features ( at least for Limelight ). It’s true that the portal lacks some things but I just don’t understand what people are specifically asking for. And I would like to. :blush:

I’m pretty sure we will never get body types, or at least not in the next years, but we can still dream about it. :grin:

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The term POC is really confusing me too. :sweat_smile: This is why I’m seeking clarifications.

Diversity includes many things, this is why I can’t fathom why POC seems to always be tied to it. I mean diversity goes beyond skin colors.

About your teacher, it’s really unfortunate. :disappointed_relieved: White people can be africans. Black people can be europeans, americans or even asians. That’s also what diversity leads to.

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When people say white, it means more than a skin colour. It’s about being of primarily European/Caucasian descent. If you’re Japanese, back in the day white people in America would have referred to you derogatorily as “yellow”

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Hm, descent? I guess I would’ve been Japanese then, though I was born and live in England. People in fact have called me yellow in the past, I’ve been teased about it :roll_eyes: I didn’t know what they meant by ‘yellow’ when I was little, so cute little angry me puffed up her cheeks and folded my arms and said, ‘I’m not yellow, I’m skin-coloured!’

*Skin coloured for me just meant every skin colour anyone could possibly ever have :joy: - mocha, coffee, olive, tan, chocolate, everything!

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Okay, I understand. :grin:
But asians aren’t yellow, I think we both agree on that.
Some of them are white, others have darker skin tones. So even if POC means people who aren’t caucasian, you can’t say that already released lip colors don’t suit POCs, right ? It doesn’t suit dark skinned people, it doesn’t suit all POCs, that’s what people meant, right ?

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Not close. We just said it doesn’t suit dark skins, not POC as a whole.

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No offense, but I’m pretty sure that I read posts asking lip colors for POCs. :blush: And not just one post.
I’m not saying everyone wrote it like this, but some people did. So I needed clarifications, because I didn’t understand what “POC” entailed exactly.
Now, I’m beginning to understand a bit more and I can now say that some people should be more careful about the terms they use.

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The original post said dark-skinned Limelight characters.

Everyone says that, literally everyone.

Northern Europeans are most likely have what we would call “monolid” than other Europeans. So yes, white people can have slender eyes or monolids. However, no one really says what their character’s ethnicity is. It’s always “S/he’s white.” White people aren’t just one category, of course looks will be different for someone whose South European and North European, this is what most people are trying to say. Anyway.

But a charater’s hair is an important part of their look… Not everyone wants to make their black characters relax their hair, it’s hard to create a story with all black cast when we don’t have enough cultural hairstyles for them.

Because most POC take their time to go and create feature threads, you can do the same if you please.

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No one ever said POC. :kissing: Check yourself.

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Exactly! Tell her!! :two_hearts::clap:t4::clap:t4::clap:t4:

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This post said that, yes. But I’m not talking about this post specifically. It’s more about replies people posted on many different threads. :slightly_smiling_face: It’s not the only post that talked about diversity and POCs, you know.

For the exclusive features, it’s my opinion that was expressed. But I didn’t completely understand your comment about “monolids”. “Northern Europeans”, are you talking about countries like Danemark, Norway, etc… ?

Hair is important, true. But I’m talking about facial features. So please, put the hair aside for now :smile: Facial features aren’t exclusive to any kind of people. Again, it’s my opinion. You can disagree.

I don’t intend to make a thread about clothing but thanks for the suggestion. :slightly_smiling_face: I just wanted to know if people were asking for traditional clothes when they talked about “poc clothes”. Before, you ask: yes, some users phrased it like this.

You know if I made this thread, it’s not because I only read one post or two about the topic. It’s because it’s something I came across a lot, even on threads that weren’t related to it. :grin:

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Yeah where you’re born and live makes no difference. I was born in England and I plan on living in Japan, but I’m definitely not white

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I’ve searched it on the forum and only one person referred it as “POC lips colors,” it has been blurred for privacy but you are free to search it up yourself. The post was made in December, so I’ve searched it up after December. Only 24 responds and most of them are from role plays. -which I assume has nothing to do with “POC lip colors.”-

It’s just a shortcut people use, pardon my bluntness, but this is nitpicking, I would’ve understood something else but making a fuss out of just one person referring something as a whole, is nitpicking.

I see, yes I did mean countries like Denmark, Norway etc. No eye shape, skin color, lips or any other feature belongs to a certain race. And most people, at least the ones who want diversity agrees on this. There have been people who disagreed before but now fully support the idea now. We like changes. :slightly_smiling_face:

Eh, I could talk about facial features as well. Like how they didn’t release a Broad Nose for months. And we only have one of that for females from what I’ve seen. Each to their own I guess, also never disagreed with you. I’m a supporter of that idea. :wink:

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Not really? I did scroll down to see all 75 founding, none of them really said “POC clothes,” as you put it. Although I must say, I’m disheartened you think I would ask such a thing, I do like searching up by myself.

Most people say “Cultural Clothing,” no one really says “POC clothing” and I would agree at some extent, clothing does belong to a culture, however that doesn’t mean you can’t wear it. You can wear a cultural clothing if you want to.

Alright, never questioned this. Anyway, I hope I cleared up a few of your questions.

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I don’t think the problem is that some white people have monolids or an epicanthic fold… if it was as rare on Episode as it is in real life. However, it seems like every other story takes features that are rare for their race and then uses them if it suits their idea of beauty. And then you get people adding monolids to characters to make them look ugly and old. The features are being abused.

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It’s like every other white MC has monolids (with makeup) and full lips. That’s a very rare combination for Caucasian people, so it’s odd that so many MCs have them.

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And you rarely add it on your characters. :sob: How many White people you have given full lips? :relieved:

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Then people get on the backs of anyone asking for diversity as if it’s a crime… when we wait ages to be able to create a character who looks like us only to have Caucasian people abuse the features.

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