#choices alpha

DISCLAIMER: The Choices single LI formula has for the most part consisted of a white LI, a Black LI, and one or occasionally two other option(s) of varying races. Framing it as white, Black, and "wildcard" raises a lot of questions about racial dynamics and percieved binaries in the United States which are NOT the point of this post but I didn't want to not address it. Also have to address that I will not be assigning new surnames to the Black LI options since most of them are American and a lot of Black Americans have Anglo surnames due to the community's history with enslavement and enslavers, and Choices has simply not given us enough lore to determine if each of the custom race LI Black options are African (or another background) and which languages are a part of their heritages. Would really appreciate if they started writing more African LIs though. Also, similar reasoning applies to face options described as "Native American" in the files re: American colonization.

ALPHA

Channing Luna

These face options are described in the files as "Hispanic". Luna was a Spanish-language surname sound match for Lowe, and plus it also means "moon"!! Yippee werewolf theme!!!!!

Channing Liu

These face options are described in the files as "Asian". The Chinese surname Liu was just the closest sound match to "Lowe" tbh.

BABY BUMP

Clint Kao

This face option is described in the asset files as "Asian". He reminds me a little of the Taiwanese actor Godfrey Gao (rip) so in my head he's Taiwanese like meeee!!! Which sucks cause I didn't like this LI that much lmao. Anyway Kao is the Taiwanese spelling of the surname that is Anglicized as Gao in Chinese Pinyin so I gave it to him cause he reminds me of Godfrey Gao (rip). Not a spelling match but then again there aren't any Chinese surnames that start with the same letter and sound as Covington (e.g., Chang and Cai both start with the letter C but start with the sounds "ch" and "ts" respectively.).

DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS

Charles Quiñones / Charlotte Quiñones

These face options are described in the asset files as "Hispanic". Went with sound matches since there aren't many (any?) Spanish-language surnames that start with K like King.

Charles Kim / Charlotte Kim

These face options are described in the asset files as "Asian". I thought Kim was a pretty good sound and spelling match for King. But it did make me realize that although Kim is the most common surname in Korea by a lot, a Choices Wiki search revealed to me that there's only one character in the entire Choicesverse with that surname and it's the FBI guy from Veil of Secrets?

DISTANT SHORES

Edward Mao

This face option is described in the asset files as "Asian". I originally chose the Japanese surname Morishima because it was an initial spelling match, multisyllabic, and had the ending "ma/mer" sound, but I wanted to honor the great Ming Dynasty Chinese tradition of piracy and its far-reaching legacy. So I went with the Chinese Mao.

Also I know he's canonically from like England which would explain why he's an 18th-century Asian man with an English first name but just for fun if he was from China I think he would be called Mao Aiwei. Or Morishima Eiji if he was from Japan.

Edward Montoya

This face option is described in the asset files as "Hispanic". Montoya was a relatively close Spanish-language sound match.

And if he had a Spanish first name too he would be Eduardo Montoya ovb.

THE DUCHESS AFFAIR

Nathaniel Pandit / Natalie Pandit

These face options are described in the asset files as "Indian". Not a lot of sound matches for Pippin but the Sanskrit surname Pandit has the intial "P" and the ending "i" sound, plus it means "scholar" and fun fact, this word is also the origin of the English term "pundit".

Also since in my research I learned that the vast majority of Indian immigrants to England in this time period adopted English language aliases for use in English society, I came up with some potential real names for these face options: Nathuram for Nathaniel and Nalini for Natalie.

FIRST COMES LOVE

Blake Mai

These face options are described in the asset files as "Asian". I decided on Mai since it could be Vietnamese or broadly Sinophone.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Blaine Juárez

These face options are described in the asset files as "Hispanic". Not any Spanish-language surnames that start with the letters "Ha" as far as I know so I went with a sound match.

GUARDED

Ash Harada

These face options are described in the asset files as "Asian". The Japanese surname Harada is a sound and spelling match and also one of the most common surnames in Japan! EASAYY!!! Though headcanoning them as Japanese brings the total number of Choicesverse Japanese-Americans Named Ash to three. Laugh out loud.......

Part 2