Are locker loadouts linked to the originally loaded characters / emotes?

When I'm editing the locker loadout, am I editing a copy of the character I load or the actual character I load?

Why I'm asking this: If I delete the character after I save the loadout, the character section of the loadout reverts to all defaults.

Does this mean that I need to 1) create the character 2) create the emotes and 3) save the loadout. Moving forward any changes to the loadout edits whatever they are linked to, not a copy of what was loaded.

It would be nice if there was some documentation on how this stuff works.