Funny thing is, I actually have a female Machamp character. Well, Machamp/Charizard hybrid (due to face and horns but that doesn't affect her moveset). I feel like the less common genders deserve attention/a spotlight.

I have a female Machamp as well. She's the foster mother of one of my characters, in fact.

...who I need to draw again as a homage to Pokken Fighter, but that'll have to be for another day.

I'm pretty much cool with Pokeanthros in any gender as long as its like designed well.

Well that goes without saying. Also depends on whether we mean "designed well" as in visually or character-wise. Contrary to popular belief, those are not always one and the same :P

Visually is what I mean yeah sorry. Like how Bittenhard and Crovirus draw their anthros.

Oh right, them. They're ok I GUESS >_>

Was it something I said...?

Oh wow. I actually have a lot to say on this. But I'd rather not type it all out as it would take forever. Perhaps if you would like to have a conversation on skype we can discuss this and share opinions. (No it does not have to be with mic if you so wish to take me up on this.)

I will say however it seems like Lopunnies have it hard. They tend to be feminized beyond all reason and therefore seem to have only one of two personality types. A guy who struggles to be cool or some such but failing because everyone identifies him as a female or gay. The other one is simple enough and that's just having the character be a sex machine.

Sounds about right, and I feel that it's pretty much the same with a lot of feminine-looking Pokemon despite those specie having a chance to be male.

Especially Audino. Which was also why I had gone out of my way to draw a manly anthro Audino, mainly to test myself to see if such a thing could be possible. I believe I've succeeded in that regard, ;-D

That would also partially be why Anji is a male Mawile, yes :V

Well, I know that there tends to be ALOT of female eeveelutions, despite them being a 12.5% chance of them being female in game. Otherwise, I'm completely okay with all of the Pokemon above being either gender.

As for my dislikes, I have very very very few, but Pokemon that are single sexed being portrayed as the opposite gender (Gallade as a female, Froslass as a dude, etc etc) those tend to, not infuriate me, but just plain confuse me to no end.

I am willing to play along with those types of character depending on the setting they're in and if there's an explanation for it aside from "the creator really wanted to" (unless it's just a drawing for the sake of drawing, in which case hey, more power to you.)

If I ever made a stink about these characters in the past for the PCA it was because those weren't supposed to be allowed in and, you know, I was an admin once and trying to make people follow the rules was something I tried/failed to enforce.

But such is life.

Yep yep. Tis life. Nothing wrong with enforcing rules!

( psst. Check your skype, as a heads up. You'll find something that will make you very very happy~!)

(Will check lateeeeer)

I see a lot of female eevee and eeveelutions, not quite sure why. I actually know someone with a male Kangaskhan OC, not to mention we've both put genders on Porygon in spite of it being genderless.
A little closer to home, Milotic seems to be female more often than not, a fact I'd like to think I've subverted with a character of mine. As it stands I like seeing subversions of stereotypes and expectations.

If you REALLY need a reason for why female eeveelutions are so popular despite their low female ratio in-game, you have not been on the internet long enough :P

And CeeGee technically still is genderless, she just has a female-oriented AI and her personality tends to favor being referred to and dressing as a female. Not that she's all that feminine anyway, considering her hobbies and career choice not being something traditionally considered female-oriented. That's the Porygon in her talking :P

Good point, I think it could be an example of selective memory on my part, as it stands I'm working with a male Vaporeon, go me!

Wonder how often people make gender neutral Porygons? Probably more than I know about! I'm gonna avoid a topic which could get a bit iffy, but suffice to say I like em regardless.

As it stands my experience with pokemorphs is considerably limited, so I've mostly seen em as girls for obvious reasons, that said, I have been looking further for more interesting characters.

I can't tell if your list of stereotypes is ones that appear too much or not often enough... half of those I've yet to see from others. XD

I don't have many stereotypes that come to mind immediately, but as a personal rule, there are certain species I don't touch because I see them so often, I don't feel I have anything I could offer to make mine feel unique. Charizard line, blaziken line, Lucario line, and I NEVER want to try Pikachu. XD I don't have problems with those species, mind you - I avoid them because I actually don't think I could offer anything unique, and they aren't species I care enough about to sit and think on. But ironically, a couple of my pre-PCA ideas were in fact a pikachu and a lucario, which I scrapped because I realized they were super cliche choices to start with.

I don't have a proper understanding of what is a stereotype for a species, but if I think of something that I feel would be... ironic for said species, I go for it. Like a quirky pink girl whose species is associated with being gothic or a large, timid legendary. I usually only ever look at gender ratios to confirm that the gender I chose is possible within my self-stated rules.

... not that gender ratios matter for me since 90% of what I draw is girls, whoops

I've tried Pikachu. He was kind of my first, in fact.

And I'm in a similar boat in which I don't touch "popular" breeds unless I get a strong enough idea for something worth playing with. Sometimes it dorishes, sometimes it does not. Sometimes it never goes beyond the one pic. And of course, if it's a pokemon with a known stereotype, either I try to play it against stereotype (Nigel, whose stereotype as a male Gardevoir needs no explaining) or make them embrace it in an interesting way (Myra, in the case of embracing her specie's foul odors and love for strong smells and tastes). Similarly, though, I'm debating scrapping a Scrafty character until I can find a way to make him a bit more interesting.

And all I'm going to say in regards to that last past is DIVERSITY IS GOOD FOR YOU.

YES I KNOW, I must fix the lack of male characters for everyone's sake XD

Hey now, I didn't even say male, you just assumed that :V (not that having more males is bad, just sayiiiiiing)

I have to admit that gender is not something I generally care about, but the typology of pokemon tends to annoy me to no end however.

I understand that this is a Rock-Paper-Scissors-type game mechanic, but when typology is used outside of the official source material it tends to fall into type-based roles, all without regard for a pokemon's physiology or the full breadth of its capabilities. Aside from this, there's always the outrageous pokedex entries (Which I personally think are questionable at best) that get thrown around to justify feats in vs arguments on forum sites like SpaceBattles.com.

Typology is great for a general understanding of strategy, but it's not the end-all-be-all - not every pokemon of a given typing is suited for its type-based role, and there are pokemon of different typings that can potentially be better in that role instead.

To that end, I give you the teleporting magnemite/magneton/voltorb/electrode. Imagine the implications of that in a pokemon universe.

You know what? That thing about not regarding pokemon as the individual species rather than the typing? That's a form of discrimination that is totally valid as a possibility in a sentient pokemon world setting. May not seem smart to you but then, when has discriminating ever been a smart thing to begin with? And with discrimination comes pokemon creating many a made-up story about how some pokemon are inept or weak or cursed or whatever and, if enough people believe it, that could become a stereotype that may not actually justified or even true, but could still be something that could potentially happen in such a setting, with how much depending on the characters in it.

Now that you put it that way, what also comes to mind is the Caste system that was used in India.

Not a bad example, as well as an interesting approach to storytelling with a pokemon setting I'd be curious to see someday.

Male Blissey

But really, some stuff just look so masculine you may need to extremely deviate from the original design and thats a no-no to me, it gotta look like the original design at least a bit. Ive been having a freaking female pinsir on my head but I just cant know, lol.

Overall, some designs just influence the decision in the gender, some stuff look pretty feminine or masculine but hey... the genders are female or male 50/50 most of the time. Thats up to interpretation or if you dont want to bandwagon.

"some stuff just look so masculine you may need to extremely deviate from the original design and thats a no-no to me"

I'm going to be honest, your comment...confuses me, to put it in the nicest way possible.

Consider a dog, as in an actual dog in real life. How often can you correctly identify what sex it is by just looking at it without asking the owner/checking downstairs?

Consider a peacock in real life. That beautiful plumage? Those are the males who have that.

Consider lions. We all know male lions are the ones with the manes, but even THAT isn't always the case.

In pokemon itself, sexual dimorphism is ridiculously rare. Aside from the Nidos, the concept of pokemon having gender differences did not exist until the Diamond and Pearl generation, and even there the most you'll see is either a notch on a fin or tail, different marking or even different color schemes. The later games go on to include the occasional pokemon with more noticeable differences (Frillish-line comes to mind) and X/Y introduces Espurr, whose appearance and even moveset changes when it evolves into Meowstic

In all the above examples, they all have one thing in common: what we as humans perceive as "masculine" and "feminine" does not actually apply to animals, nor should pokemon be exempt from that just because their creators are human. "But what about anthros", you may ask? Still applies, because there it'd be a matter of aesthetics and what a _pokemon_, not a human, would consider beautiful or not should depend on them. And with them being non-human by nature, it'd make the most sense for many of them to have significant difference in what is "hot" and what is "not". Some think pokemon with the biggest horns are hot, or the largest belly, or the sharpest spikes, whatever.

So saying a pokemon is too masculine/too feminine is a very confusing thing to say when neither of those words DO NOT APPLY to pokemon.

Let me clarify.

By stuff I meant standard design, lets take probopass as a prime example (cause really, it STANDS out). When you first take a look at it you say "damn, that looks really masculine" expecting from the artist point of view and people will see more fitting for probopass to be a male. Bittenhard did a miracle on a female probopass... but it doesnt look like probopass at all. Same will go for another example that can be male... aromatisse, most people will see that as a female when it can actually be a male as well (funnily enough), same with gardevoir... see the amount of female garde content.

As said, it all about perception and people follow that cause it makes more sense you see a male conkeldurr over a female conkeldurr cause of the first impression.

Of course artists can break the mold, like you, you actually did a male sylveon when 99.9% of the sylveons I see are female. So theres that.

Im talking more about the design itself and how some people (like me, cause Im like that) would interpret the design of a poke relating it to its gender.

For the record, most birds in nature have the most notorious traits like plumage and stuff.

What is androgynousness and intersex.

Goodra looks like Barney designed by the french, HOW can anyone go about judging what gender SPECIFICALLY it belongs to?

Also, Implications of topless Chickchamp. Please, more Ms. Mime, though. I imagine Femkeldurr is like Grendel's mother or something. Then there's Greninja as another example of androgynousness. Consensus, far as I've been concerned, is that no matter the gender, both of them get treated equally in fanart of normal and lewd kind. I love it. Chances are, that cool pic of the Pokemon is actually a chick.

Point is, there's a category for the third gender. It's called Androgynous/Intersex.

ADD rant over.

In this case I was referring to the *in-game* gender classifications rather than the real life ones. Because while *characters* based on pokemon can be fall under anywhere in the gender spectrum, that is how they are referred to in the official franchise itself and what I was using in terms of how *the fandom in general* sees them in general. So please, ease back on that part of the rant?

I'll refrain from commenting on the rest of it simply because I'm too confused by most of it.

Oh, I get it now. Personally would love to see subversions.

Art-wise I don't have a problem with the stereotypes, it adds more allure to the ones that don't follow the stereotypes. If someone can be unique, they just deserve more praise. Game wise there is so much controversy, such as the *ONE* pokemon that actually has the chance to change gender as it evolves or the weirdness of the Female Mr. Mime that I try not to bother beyond what I want.

If someone wants to break gender rules let them, as always, it's the internet so you don't have to care.

I don't see a problem so long as what's done is consistent and given solid context.. I mean, you can kind of expect Male Kangaskhan to be an actual thing - I like to give Game Freak some slack for some of the early stuff they did (if you actually think Male and Female Nidorans shouldn't be able to mate because of a gen 1 technicality then your problem). But on the other hand if you want to do a Male Vespiquen... well, sure, but give me one good reason to suspend my disbelief a little further than average. If you really go the extra mile and give some solid explanation to certain things (a male Kan that doesn't have pouch to carry young? Alright, you're golden) I might even buy some of the crazier things you put on the table.

But something that irks me is the whole "gender ratio" thing - it makes zero sense in the games about 90% of the time and exists mostly as a balancer to avoid day-care abuse. It's a personal gripe, and if you want to throw in as to why your female Bayleef is very protected and sheltered because female births are so rare... Fine. It's in the game. I still don't personally like it - how did they not die off with such a problematic gender ratio?

---

Hope you don't mind me going on a tangent, but my personal gripe with Pokémon stereotypes isn't really gender - it becomes personality. It's a funny topic, because I neither like to play along entirely nor completely subvert it. Things such as "Dark-types are more malicious and more prone to evil"... Right, what is the basis for that?

When it comes to my own Janus (Houndoom), he's sort of a middle ground. He's an unpleasant and grumpy jackass, sure, but he is surprisingly considerate towards those who stick around despite his rough attitude. Those who get past that find out Janus is not only surprisingly literate and cultured but his own uncle (who has been raising him in his teenage years) is an awesome and kindhearted Houndoom. Why is it like this? Context. The social stigma of a dual-type Dark and Fire (unique, btw), as well as the infamy behind his typing means he gets a bit of flack for something that is out of his control. Janus tried to be nice, but eventually got sick of it and decided "oh, if everyone is going to give me the suspicious look no matter what I do then screw that".

......Huge tangent but I hope you get the point. I'm fine with stereotypes, I'm also fine with going against them, but make sure what you do is consistent and given a good context and I honestly root for you on that matter.

I'm going to be super-lazy and just say ^^^^^THIS^^^^^

Seriously, though, that's all it really comes down to. Stereotypes aren't necessarily *have* to be bad, but there needs to be a context and coherency to it. And in a perfect world, there wouldn't be so many "this pokemon looks masculine/feminine in my eyes, so much so that I refuse to believe it has any other gender because it gets away from my logic/sexytimes!", but alas...

For what it's worth, I don't take EVERY bit of in-game poke-fact/Pokedex entry to heart. In my own personal setting, not everyone comes from eggs, any Nido can breed and gender ratios aren't really a thing save for all-one-gender and genderless ones mixed in with real world forms of sexual identity and how that gets approached when mixed with a pokemorph (such as my agender Accelgor, to give one example). After all, in the pokemon world, you have things like evolutions to worry about as well. That's got to make things significantly more challenging to some! Oh and Legendaries can breed, though their birth rates tend to be lowest out of any pokemon. I have more "personal rules", though I think I'll save those for a new journal...

Absols with their horns on the other side. No clue why, but for some reason, my OCD just goes nuts seeing an absol with their horn on the left hand side and not the right. It feels... wrong.

Mightyenas that are dark and edgy. Yes, they're a dark type, but does every Mightyena need a leather jacket? I suppose almost any DARK-type qualifies for this as well.

Pink Male Lopunny: We get it, he's a guy and he's pink.

Uh... not sure what else though. Uh. Lucarios are always drawn sexy-like? Not sure if that's a stereotype though.

Mainly female eeveelutions in general (seriously, there are a crapton of female espeon art that the lack of male ones actually bug me out)

Well, whether it's regular anthros or Pokemorphs, one of my favorite things to do is play with species stereotypes. The funny thing about Pokemon stereotypes, though, is that they tend to be colored by people's perception of the real-life animal. For example, I see a lot of puppyish happy-go-lucky Growlithe. Now, if you sit down and read those guys' Pokedex entries, Growlithe also have this nasty territorial nature that no-one ever seems to explore.

People who create Pokemorphs, more often than not, write them as humans with Pokemon features. I try to keep it a little more balanced in terms of behavior, as well as design. I mean, these people are very obviously not human. This was a thing that got me flak in the PCA, especially with issues like clothing/decency and the level of intimacy some of my characters had. Compared to that human-based norm, Mighty-anne and Headlight's sensibilities seemed borderline insane. Burst's relationships with Rukey and Sammy were often read as...erm...more than friends. I mean, Shinx are shy Pokemon who depend so heavily on their parents even in their free-roaming stages, that Luxray have the ability to see through solid objects to keep track of them. I made mine a needy mama's boy who relies on his friends. Absol is a Pokemon that's unfairly discriminated against due to misconceptions about its behavior. I made mine a slut.

As for stereotypes I see too often, I guess "all-powerful Lucario" and "hyper-aggressive male Lopunny". Lucario are great. I love them, but people just never seem to cap the power level on them. They're always the heroes, they never lose, and it's just infuriating because so many of them have the exact same personality. As for the Lopunny thing, it was cute and funny the first time I saw it but...ugh. After the 50th time of so the novelty wore off. I was so bored of it at that point that I when I made a male Lopunny, I had him be a flamer.

I never cared too much about gender ratios, even with Eeveeloutions. But with one-gender species, it seems kind of cheap to sex-swap when you could have done something more interesting like have a tomboy/girly boy or trans character.

I always did like your general approach to pokemorph design, even the more controversial ones.

And I am totally with you with...pretty much everything you just said. I probably would not have made a slutty Absol, but that's more personal sensitivities than anything at fault with your idea, so don't mind me there.