#to do it while also saving myself from undertaking a giant coding endeavor

[thelonelyshore-if]

When it comes to labeling sexuality in IFs, I think it does depend on a lot the setting and context, and specifically, is queerness an important conversation in the story?

If it is, then I personally strongly prefer to pick a specific label. But since the same label can have different meanings to different people, I tend to find myself wanting to be able to both choose a label and separately choose what genders I tend to be attracted to and how. I don't know how difficult coding would be, but it might be helpful to let players pick from a preset or type in their own label for their characters just like you do their name and then choose from the list of "I'm attracted to x gender(s)."

I don't know exactly what you're planning with trans and nonbinary MCs, but working under the assumption that there's going to be some measure of choice involved, you don't have to specifically tie one queer experience to one label. You could let the player choose something from the options that fits them best, i.e. "Realizing I wasn't attracted to men was difficult," "Experiencing attraction to a variety of genders felt surprisingly isolating," "I couldn't relate to my friends when they picked out the hottest cheerleader," "I felt like I was broken when I wasn't having those quintessential first crushes" etc. while using whatever label they chose or typed previously in the conversation. If that makes sense? That way players wouldn't be required to pick from the most known labels but could still discuss an aspect of queerness that they relate to their character. I'm just spitballing idk either way good luck!! It's not an easy choice to make because there's pros and cons to it all.

Thank you so much for your thoughts!!

There truly are pros and cons to it all, and I've spent the past few days sifting through them in my mind. I super appreciate this ask because you helped me settle on the approach I think I'm going to take (with room to shift/change in the future!)

Initially as I've been reading various responses I thought I might go for basically what you're suggesting. Label -> genders -> ace/aro specifics. But the coding would be a huge undertaking, and I'm not sure I have the skill and/or time.

Plus, a lot of the purely mechanical benefits to picking a specific label (like not having men flirt with MC if they're lesbian, for example) is already mostly covered by my interest/attraction system. ROs don't pursue MC (beyond playful flirting, for Beck&Yas, and I'm planning to let MC shut that down if desired) unless MC has already indicated interest in them.

So for now I'm planning on (mostly) keeping the system I was originally rocking with...

BUT (and the reason I'm hijacking your wonderful ask instead of just making a separate post), I really like your idea of having choices that aren't specifically label-based but more generally describe a variety of queer experiences. Your examples made something click really well in my brain.

I want to give the MC the opportunity to talk about their sexuality as well as their gender, if they so choose. And initially I thought that setting specific variables would be the only real way to do that, which is where this all started. But your examples showed me a really neat way to approach it! So genuinely thank you so much it's an incredible idea <3