Homotron3000 Writes Yoai

hi yes, ik this is NOTHING alike my usual stuff,, anyways// First off make sure to check the vid above its quick the shocking gathering of data (+ramble by the end) and don't forget to leave a like

To summarize the data of OCs gathered in artfight is that more than half of OCs are male, leaving with only a small percentage of female OCs; furthermore, taking a closer look at the characters, male characters are often more developed than their female counterparts who are not as developed, sonas and/or are accessories to other characters

It is genuinely quite surprising which leaves a lot of food for thought, also between the ramble there is the advice that take ur fav male OC and make them female which i think is pretty valid, again check the vid for yourself; also also the vid itself will have comments with similar points i'll be putting here if u wanna go and check those instead all good

Other than that well there's a reason I'm making a post lol, i wanted to give it some thought, also light critique and applying this to my characters

I think the vid overlooks the fact that the artist community especially OC artist is mainly comprised of woman, lgbtq+, and trans, and they have a bigger lean for male characters for the many reasons some being attraction (not necessarily sexual nor romantic but they can play factors in it), and/or gender envy (at least these are my reasons when i focus my interests more on the male characters in fandom/ocs); and, although I understand why the focus is on the data and not looking at the userbase, ignoring it completely overlooks the influence the ppl in the community have over the data. Like, ofc a woman attracted to men is gonna draw men if given the opportunity, ofc trans men are gonna want characters that more closely resemble them, ofc a gay men is gonna want to draw men for the very same reason as the women in the community. I'm not saying this is what they said but the way they go on and on about it in the vid makes one feel like oh you should be writing more woman you cant even do that? its so easy why cant you just write women? They come off fairly condescending and man....

will artists ever escape the I can make whatever I want especially if its for myself? Specifically OC artists a lot arent looking to be professional and make books or comics with OCs theyre just a fun side project for most believe it or not which you know what that means right? they dont need to be diverse. If you're just doing art for yourself and dont plan on branching out, ofc its good to step out of the comfort zone a couple of times but not a necessity, meaning that a cast of mainly male OCs with just a couple of female OCs here and there is just as fine; this whole diversification point should be saved for artist planning on publishing books and comics which I think its important that artist should be able to represent characters from different perspectives, i will never stop talking about how important it is to learn something as simple as painting different skin tones and features which should just be basic knowledge for all artists but at the same time i wont be trying to pressure a hobbyist who likes idk drawing pretty girls for themselves to not draw the pretty girls, just keep drawing what you enjoy theres nothing wrong with that. Basically we shouldn't go around bursting other's bubbles forcing them to diversify unless for legitimate reasons like writing a book set in asia but every character is a conventionally attractive white person

I dont think either point above was something they had to talk about in the vid, after all its just a data collection for the most part and the vid throughout works just as fine as it it. It really is the rant by the end that seems so lacking of nuance and i suppose thats what the rant was meant to be but its not safe from much needed criticism like the community itself is an important factor to take one as it very much influenced the results

You wanna know something I've come to notice? I don't often see guy artists but the few guys I've seen to have OCs and write stories and all have mainly a cast of female OCs and i saw that and i was like huh, makes sense and these characters weren't made to be neither accessories, design only, or even gooner bait, they were all just their own character with their detailed stories. Much like me, I can't deny my attraction to males (not romantically nor sexual), nor could I deny the pure gender envy I feel for those guys so for the longest time my cast of OCs was a lot of well developed guys. I wouldn't be surprised if that artist simple made those OCs because theyre pretty, or an even a more complicated reason, but he sure cared about them as much as i care for mine and i think in the end thats what matters the most

Now this is the part where I ramble about myself

For the longest time my OCs have been mainly a cast of just guys with the gals being simply additions to the story, ive had my fair share of girls ive developed quite a bit (as in had full designs and backstories) but they were hardly drawn and presented in my writings as i always failed to connect to them on a major scale; looking back, my gal OCs have never been superficial in any sense other than maybe they just werent part of the main cast and that's about it. Compared to the guys well, there was a very clear discrepancy between the two,,, when i used toyhouse my two fav OCs which were both guys (and in love) and individually they both have like 20+ pics

now i wont get into the whole yaoi vs yuri debacle in fandom i mainly focusing on the oc fandom (?) overall but looking at how both oc and fandom culture overlap is well another influence to seep into the results in the vid- what i will mention is that ive always been into the yaoi side and always will be as even now i predominantly write gay fanfic of genshin/hsr men SIDE RANT also yuri at least at the time was purely for the male gaze and it was a lot more heteronormative than its cousin im not saying yaoi doesnt have similar issues but like you go to hentai.net you getting straight or yuri absolutely no yaoi women are far more sexualized out the get go while yaoi takes like a couple of chapters to get to the more sexual parts and im talking back then in my experience i think now in recent times its quite different but uh yea, (also i am not counting nana as yuri) end side rant

and so, what? i neglected my women OCs for a queer romance that's just as underrepresented. Lesbians are just as if not more underrepresented as gays but see side rant above as to why I hadn't been too attracted to yuri instead. I don't think I'm in the wrong to have mostly male OCs which i just connect more, in general attraction and gender envy, as to my female OCs which i didn't rlly connect to as much partly thanks to the internalized misogyny of "im not like other girls, I read" (i dont even read much) and i will repeat again, this vid at least the rant at the end nearly damn demonizing these oc creators along with title shaming them into writing women is just not the way to go about it, I do and will forever agree with the overall message of the vid which is more ppl should write women but also it should come from a genuine place such as myself

you see, months far before me ever seeing this vid, my tastes had,,, changed, (i can even get logs to prove this is before the vid ever came out but id rather not share my pms) i began starting to write more lesbians stories with gals as ofc the main and only focus of the story, but would leave them in the dumps later as i always returned to my comfort gay OCs, those two guys were undoubtedly my mains; i felt conflicted tho, because i wanted to write more gals and connect with them and the ones i got to write can to an extent reflect me quite well but... i just couldn't let go of my comfort characters, in the end after speaking to my friends esp rp partners i had rps with these characters, we both came to the conclusion that yes, its okay to turn them into women.

yup my two gays who are my main OCs are now lesbians and im quite happy with the decision,