but none of the recurring beasts in my "real" gallery do. Is this perhaps how I tell them apart?
It is possible that the "normal" material has females, males and weirdos, but I primarily draw the weirdos.
I do not imagine the two factions as inhabiting the same places! They probably cannot meet. If they are aware of each other, they may presume whichever they are not in is fictional. However, evidence exists that creatures I did not come up with can meet with either. Most curious. That shoe experiment seems too dangerous to risk under such unstable circumstances.
Link
beepy
Maybe in the universe of your mind, this society's gender markers are shoes. Assuming there are only two genders involved here. And that makes me wonder about what would happen if you walked around with one shoe on and the other off.