🌈 LGBT+ OCs discussion thread

RyuWarrior I'm really just echoing what other people have said, but I personally also enjoy feminine male characters when they're just written as people! I firmly believe if you consider your character a person you can't go too wrong! And like Waltz said, if you don't imply he's feminine because he's gay or something you shouldn't run into trouble. I wouldn't call myself the feminine mlm guy as much as I lean towards the androgynous side, but I also very much enjoy seeing these kind of male characters and actually feel super happy whenever people make them without ill or shady intentions! 

On unrelated topic, I was wondering how people on this thread feel about the notion that the author should always out themselves in order to justify what they write? Like a lot of the time I see people discussing how you shouldn't write about topic X unless you have gone through it yourself, but at the same time it sort of forces the author to discuss about parts of their identity they might not want to? I know this really divides opinions though so for the sake of a good time, please let's discuss rather than fight! 

Caine i think you wanted pinged? sorry if not!

i think the concept of making people out their identity or trauma is kinda senselessly mean and dismissive? i definitely don't like the idea that you HAVE to air out any bad things that happened to you to have to justify why you'd write something. i understand where the concept's coming from - people don't want someone completely misinformed about a topic to spread stereotypes or negative portrayals of something very sensitive or controversial - but forcing the author to out themselves feels like the worst possible way to go about it. strangers aren't obligated to share their dirty laundry with anyone on the internet at all, and i don't like the culture that says they have to or risk being called X/Y/Z.

it also places this weird importance on suffering the most? like, if you want to write about bad things in your story or traumatic events, you have to go through all of those yourself, and then Only Then will you Become The Well-Rounded Writer and i think that's absurd. like, point-blank - and it really tends to target small-time authors or fanfic writers, who tend to write about LGBT+ material. nobody really goes on witchhunts for published authors to out their histories if they write a piece of problematic content (at least from what i've seen)? 

also barring topics, in general, unless someone experienced it is stupid. absolutely none of historical fiction or fantasy would exist, nor would any sort of fictional worlds, since the author didn't go through most of it themself. i know generally the advice is meant for very sensitive topics, but at most i think they need to be handled with more research and respect rather than cutting them off entirely. nothing really helped me learn about things more than when i did research for writing, and it broadens my knowledge every time i go on a hunt to read how, idk, dams work so i can accurately write about a character's job. 

and, well, since so many different sensitive topics are extremely personalized and individualized forms of trauma (no two people tend to experience them the same) someone's portrayal of their OWN trauma or illness might be starkly different than someone else's. so there's no real standard anyways, even when it comes to people who have gone through the story. so it should be encouraged, anyways, to do research even about topics someone's gone through so they can appreciate alternative perspectives and gain a more well-rounded idea of their trauma/illness/etc rather than relying solely on a individual's experience.

and yeah you'll always have people that fumble the landing and write horribly offensive portrayals of sensitive topics, but as long as it wasn't actively malicious i think they should be afforded grace and taught the correct way to go about things, rather than be ostracized. (people who wrote it to be actively cruel, obviously, do not deserve pity). it shows a willingness to understand if someone's trying to write about it, and most likely they'll become better with time and more talented! 

sorry this was long hah

EDIT: OH NO SORRY FOR THE DOUBLE PING it posted twice

RyuWarrior i think it's fine! :-) like waltz said, a bit of gender nonconformity can be common with people who arent straight, since straightness tends to be related to gender expectations as well (eg, "being a man means you should like women"....), so people who aren't straight can often enjoy playing with presentation to express themselves, even if plenty equally don't!

the only thing i would be careful about is "despite his feminine presentation, you can tell he's a male", though i understand that's probably a temporary phrase - just be mindful how you talk about that going forward, since "seeing through presentation to someones 'actual gender'" can get super dicey for trans people.. eg, just because you can tell a woman is trans via "masculine features", that doesn't mean shes actually a man.

Pyatiugolnik It's totally ok! I waited to see if other people would say anything before replying back but yeah I share pretty much the same opinion as you! I understand people's concern but there usually is a clear difference between actually malicious content and stuff written from a different experience / without necessarily all the info. I have had the displeasure to witness people screaming at actual transgender people who talk about their own experience that they're "bad representation" and "trans people aren't like that" because they didn't know OP is trans and speaking from their experience. I think it's just mean and intrusive to force someone out themselves just to somehow justify their writing and experience, because, like you said, everyone's experience is different and there are no two identical life paths. 

Listen my homies, I am in need of some help! 

My main oc, Nick, is supposed to be pansexual. Like, I made him pansexual and thats what he is. However the more i sit with it the more i dislike it? And its not that I wanna change his sexuality, i just have an issue with having a pansexual character... And i seriously have no idea why. This will sound like a straight white guy talking, but alot of my friends are pan, and ive never had issues with pansexual people, or the sexuality in general before? I don't know why at all but it makes me super uncomfortable for him to be pan, even though hes supposed to be??

I have a similar thing with my oc Weenus and him being ace. Again, i have nothing wrong with asexuality, or asexuals, and he should be ace and it makes sense for him to be!! But for some reason, it feels... gross/weird for him to be asexual? Someone help me ughhhh why is my mind being like this

EDIT: also pls ping me in replies!! or else ill forget to look at them ;w;

Tone

I can understand having certain "feelings" about characters, and eventually figuring out they're not the orientation I originally pinned them as--But I would suggest trying to figure out why you're having issues with certain sexualities for OCs? I don't think there's anything wrong with realizing the sexuality you picked for a character isn't the right one, but referring to it as feeling "gross/weird" and feeling like you have an issue with simply having characters of certain sexualities is.... Highly concerning to me, particularly as someone who is both ace and pan. :c

Maiden-of-Ghosts yeah that’s what I’m trying to figure out?? ;; I haven’t had this issue before so Big Oof ya know.... 

 Hey so, the main antagonist of my story is a lesbian, and her relationship to another character in the story is absolutely crucial to the plot. I'm really worried about how this might be received if I ever make a webcomic out of my story since the last thing I want to do is paint lesbians or any LGBT group in a negative light, but I really really don't want to change their relationship or anything about the characters themselves because I've had them so long and I've spent so much time working out the details of their relationship. I've considered having the characters just be really close friends, but I think the story has more weight if they're in a committed relationship. I could also change the gender of one of them, but I like them the way they are. Does anyone have any advice? Am I worrying over nothing or is there really a serious problem here that I need to address? Please ping me if you have any advice, I'd really appreciate it!!