I think you could take a page out of those dialogue focused games that treat conversation as if it were another form of combat - so like, have some sort of competitive mechanic to conversation that mirrors this game's normal combat some way.

My Nonbinary ass crying in the corner watching all my Binary Guy & Gal friends play Poor Pussy without me 😔😔

I'm working on the turnaround next, for which I need to draw him from font, back and both sides. It's a painful process for sure.

Reason some of the peices look so mis-matched is because I built the design up layer by layer, picking/tweaking my fav parts as I went.
Each major item got it's own layer and iterative process.
Prosthetic, Jumpsuit, Helmet & Grapple layers to illustrate my point:

The lovely NiGHTS 💜 (my personal fave, don't tell sonic)

Ulala ready to report whilst dancing up a storm!

Kiryu, a guy that seems serious but has a heart of gold

And finally the monkey ball cast! Rolling around at the speed of...wrong franchise

🍌🍌🍌Bananas wooo!🍌🍌🍌

BLUESKY NOT SLY MY FIRST TYPO WAAAA

Great minds uuuh bluesly alike?
Ellow Ellow
Also you should see my profile header I think it's the ever

He will be contained. I will find a way.

While I was typing this I overheard someone mention gender and someone else said they were a cable in response. I love participating in society.

Thank you my good friend Beckimation