Thanks for taking a peek at this video! I am hoping to stream at some point about this topic, so let me know if you have opposing opinions and thoughts in the comments or keep an eye out for that stream so I can read your lovely ideas and see if any of my own are changed! Also! I’ve seen so many comments get snatched up by UA-cam and deleted. So guys try to censor yourselves when commenting a bit so youtube doesn’t Thanos snap you before I can even read them all.
Me personally the worst part is when it comes to characters where nobody is exactly sure what the ages of a character is. I deal with that constantly as a cookie run fan. So I get a first row seat to watching kids attack each and calling each other pedos for art of characters we might not even be sure is a kid lol
For me, it's only sus when it's clear you're sexualizing the youthful aspects of the character or are just slapping an 18 label on them without doing the work to actually interpret the character as an adult.
Yeah, if u need a good example of aging up characters then I recommend lechee doodle. She aged up ppg characters with actual good designs, making them look old and mature, yet still keep the youthful and fun spirits
Honestly, I reeeaaally miss the days of "don't like, don't read" It greatly frustrates me how much people freak out now and act as though everything that exists absolutely MUST cater to their triggers, even if they've actively BYPASSED trigger warnings to interact with something just to attack the creator. Another argument that I've seen regarding things like aging up is from minors actively engaging with content they SHOULDN'T be (18+ stuff) and getting mad that because (very DISTINCTLY and VISIBLY aged up or even CANONICAL adult) characters are from popular media and are engaging with certain preferences or toxic things is harmful for the minors that engage with it??? Which I just??? I KNOW minors tend to engage with adult content. I was a teen once, too. That said, it's still not MADE FOR minors and absolutely should NOT be catering to them.
The meme from the Arthur show where his little sister sees a "keep out" sign and says "this sign can't stop me cause I can't read" fits very well. There is a clear warning and they chose to dismiss it
Yes I definitely agree with this but if ypu wnat to watch 8t even though it says minor warning I don't care but if you're going to ypu better not go in the comments and say you shouldn't be doing this im a minor
I don't find it problematic depending on what it is deemed attractive about the character in the first place. At the end of the day, many of the characters are written by adults and their personalities and maturities will reflect that, in which case the attraction would be to the design and the personality, not necessarily the youth aspect. Furthermore, there are plenty of cases with designs that a character design can be treated as ranging anywhere from 14 to in their 30s with the only actual way to discern the age is through context of the story or just a blatant reference to their age by the author or other character within the work. This is not to be confused with the tropes of a 300 yr old demon in a toddler's body as there are clear attempts made to reflect that the child coded character is highly child coded. If a nsfw artist were to be commissioned to draw a character like Kim possible and they aged them up, it would not be at all because Kim possible is portrayed overtly to be a minor but because she was written to be capable and bright. Removed from the high school setting, her personality would be indistinguishable from a woman in her 20s given how well-travelled and dependable she is. Aging her up is not the clear admission to ebephilic attractions the debate around aging up characters makes the action seem. This is much more nuanced than it is being treated.
I wrote a comment trying to express this and I now see that there was entirely no need. You explained what I was meaning to say perfectly and much better than I did.
I totally agree with you about Kim: who she is as a character can easily overshadow how she's a teenage girl (your basic average girl). Yeah, she's a resourceful, nimble bad-ass, but you can still ignore or accept her age if it makes things easier for you. I feel the same way about Supergirl: In most incarnations, Kara's a fierce, headstrong bad-ass with little restraint but a good heart (and unconventional fashion sense). But's she's also generally a teenage girl who's often way in over her head. While this fact can make things a little awkward, she is no less likeable irrespective of her age. My dilemma is: do I ignore Kara's age, or do I accept that she's a teen superheroine and try to let go? (Also a fun fact: The lady who voices Kara in 'DC Super Hero Girls' was also She-go, opposite 'Kim Possible', a pretty cool connection.)
Warning: long ass comment and mentions of p//dophillia You have literally no fucking idea how much I needed this. The moment I turned 18, a lot of things in my mind were all so blurry as a fan of many sorts of media that catered to teenagers. I thought I had to IMMEDIATELY reject and deny all of the *fictional* crushes I had at 17 that were minors bc I thought I would be considered a monster and a p//dophile bc of it. Not to mention that at age 15 I wrote a lot of self shipping stuff, still do but I was way more active in the past. Anyway, I happily wrote about other characters that were minors, and I aged them up bc I thought that them being still minors and totally unchanged in terms of maturity was pretty dubious. I got accused of being a p//do. At age 15. And it traumatized me beyond belief. I thought I legitimately was going to harm a rl kid in the future bc of picturing myself w some fictional minor, *WHILE I WAS A MINOR MYSELF.* Long story short: Pls, if ageing up makes u uncomfy, PLEASE JUST AVOID IT, don't go and harass the person behind the content. I understand better than anyone how tiring it can be to look at very dubious cases of ageing up characters and making you feel icky, I truly do. Just please. *No harassment.*
Oh god I'm really sorry you had to go through that and that people were making you think you were going down that route. Honestly I've always crushed on MHA characters since I was like 16 or 17 and legit only found out they're teens sometime last year once I hit 20 when I finally started watching the show (I originally only knew about the characters from RPs with my friend and clips but didn't watch the anime yet). The literal heart drop dude. Thank god at least I had both my friends there to reassure me that I didn't mess up and that they apparently didn't tell me the age at the time because they felt I'd probably panic a lot more since I wasn't very accepting of the aging up thing back then. I just wish more people would consider the points in the video rather than accuse people. It genuinely pisses me off that someone was legit labelled a p3d0 with no other evidence than "they make inappropriate MHA content so they'd probably do it irl"
I’m sorry this happened :( I went through a similar situation when I was 16 that also traumatized me and made me wary of “antis” I miss the days of “don’t like don’t watch/read” I don’t consider myself proship either though I kinda think both terms are dumb
Omg yes! I had the same troubles when I was 16-17 and felt like having a crush on a 15 year old fictional boy [yurio from yoi) was wrong and i remember seeing posts about you are filthy, disgusting dirty or pedo if you are older and have a crush him even though i wad A YEAR OLDER THAN HIM and I just had to leave tumblr for a year back in 2016-2017. I came back and just applied the don't like don't read motto and avoided any antis because they have mentally exhausted me and manipulated me.
I remember a fanfic I made at age 19 for which today I would be canceled for by commentary puritans. I was 14 the same age as a character I was simping for even 2 years after the show ended. I wrote a fanfiction out of fun ans shipped one character from a group of OCs. I aged him and his Story up cause it was clear where he was headed after the series finally. I was 14 just as the character, but unlike him I aged, became an adult and for some reason have to cut out all of my teen crushes the day I turn 18. That's what people forget....you can't beginn a crush as a teen and suddenly just throw it away cause you aged while the character is basically stuck in time. The most people I saw dismissing that sadly were teens who just didn't reach the point yet and call out people for aging Lovely video
One day those teens shall join us in the old decrepit department and they shall feel our agony. I hope you’re still having fun and writing fanfiction if that makes you happy. 🌟
I’m an adult and recently began crushing on the Persona 5 protagonist (thanks to a certain ASMRtist) and the amount of guilt and shame I feel because of this mindset is just ridiculous. I think quarantine has escalated things and there are more antis than ever before, watching peoples’ moves and policing their every thought. Another thing these youngins forget is you can be interested in sexual content even if you’re under 18. I read so many smut fics as a kid lol (but yes, what they access to should be limited)
@rae I'm 24 and feel like a boomer for saying it, but we as teens wouldn't even come to the idea to lecture adult artists. Like, you had to do something like tracing or stealing art or drawing nsfw of existing minors to catch the shitstorm innocent shipping gets you today
See that’s exactly why I’m afraid to turn 18, I really don’t wanna be labeled as a pedo because I still find character attractive even though I’ve aged.
I really hope replies are civil in my comment but here goes: I really don’t have a problem with aging up characters. Aging up teenagers to be adults is perfectly fine with me since they’re close to that age range to be an adult in a sense. (Say aging a 17 year old to be 27 so to speak) It gets a little problematic when it’s a child (like 5 - 9) but really that’s where my grievances stop. I really don’t like people for coming at others for something they don’t like. As the age old saying goes “don’t like, don’t read” “don’t like, don’t look”
I personally find people who age up characters for shipping/sexual stuff to be weird, not dangerous or problematic, just weird.. That being said, I won't go out of my way to "call out" or "expose" anybody but instead just go like "oh that's weird.." and move on with my day without making a single comment to them.
What I don’t get is when people get disgusted by an adult version of a character being sexual. Like WHAT DO YOU THINK THEYRE STILL MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY 12? No! People age! It’s like saying a 20 year old being sexual is inappropriate because they were once 12!
Thank you for making this, ever since I turned 18 it's been a wild ride of shaming and self-hate for even THINKING of aging up a character to match my age. I got bashed for making fan art for a characters '18'th birthday- which was just them smiling. This weird age of pureitising (hope I spelt that right) and shaming is honestly exhausting, especially with the p//do accusations being thrown around (and taking away from ACTUAL p//do instances). Instead of bashing others for aging up a fictional character, we should be focusing on protecting actual real-life kids.
Thank you for sharing your perspective and insight, Mal! I think I tend to fall on the side of being fine with aging up the vast majority of the time, though there are definitely things that cross the line for me. Maybe it's because I'm an older Gen Z, but I tend to take the perspective of "don't like, don't watch/read." It is absolutely fine for people to have different boundaries than me and I respect the hell out of that. You don't have to engage with work you don't vibe with. However, by and large I don't think it's the place of other people to play the part of the morality police or crucify people for how they engage with content. I know they're a lot of work, but I really enjoy your long videos! They give me something nice to listen to and think about while I draw.
In my opinion, it's absolutely fine to age up any character, whether out of curiosity or to sexualize them. People seem to forget that there's a big distinction between reality and fiction and sexualizing an aged up character doesn't mean someone will go after minors irl, or that they're attracted to minors at all. The issue with minors in real life having relationships with older people to begin with is the power imbalance between the teen and their much more mature partner who could very easily take advantage of/abuse them, but there's no power imbalance between a fictional character who does NOT look like a child in any way and an artist/viewer who wants to sexualize them. I feel the same way about teenage characters who look old enough to pass as adults; sexualizing a fictional character who acts, looks and sounds like an adult doesn't necessarily make you a predator :p
As a 22 year old its a weird limbo of not being young enough to have crushes on any character, but also not also not old enough to justify making a whole AU
remember guys: these are fictional characters. we should be focusing on real life kids who were ACTUALLY assaulted and traumatized by such events. because at the end of the day, these are just pixel drawn characters who don't exist.
People can focus on both. I know crazy right? This argument doesn’t have a lot of weight when you realize that everyone can have a certain amount of time to discuss something. I literally do both, I’m allowed to think about a issue
I see this all the time! Like there was this artist that drew the PPG girls as strippers, but they were very clearly adult versions and still the artist got harassed with pedo accusations and 'that just doesn't feel right'. The outfits weren't even skimpy they literally just had adult bodies with adult body suits that only showed off their thighs and arms. Fandom is getting more and more ridiculous and I for one am sick of it.
This topic makes me feel so… scared and confused. Because for a while after I turned 18 back in 2020, I genuinely felt like I was a creep just for liking Hitoshi Shinso from BNHA. It literally got to the point where I thought that I was an actual P3/d0. Not making that up. There were times where I couldn’t clear my mind without thinking about crying because i thought that I was a creep. Hell. I hated the idea of going outside for fresh air, to check the mail, or just go to the store. Because of the thought that I could be a dangerous person to kids. But deep down I *know for a fact* that I would never in a million years, hurt a minor. And to be completely honest with you. I’ve been to public schools that really did terrify me because the teens and kids acted very unsettlingly inappropriate. There were stories/ rumors in high school about students doing s3/xu@l acts on school grounds. And even before I was in high school. Back when I was in the 7th grade (I was 12). One day while I was on the bus rides to and from school, the little boy sitting next to me who was far younger than me. Most likely in kindergarten or first grade. S3x/u@ly assaulted me. When I got home I immediately told my mom about it. Who in turn, contacted the police. After the police were done investigating my mom asked what they did to the kid and his parents. But they didn’t give her a straight answer. They just told her “it’s classified information.” Which leads me to think that those parents did something to him. I mention all of that because, most predatory people have had someone assault or harass them in that way. Which is exactly why I’m scared that I might be or turn into that type of person. I’m more scared of kids and teenagers because of high school and what happened to me directly. But I still fear that i’m no better than actual p3/d0s just because I ever liked anime characters that just so happened to be minors. I know that I probably sound crazy. And that others probably won’t believe me. But I just had to get this off of my chest. This whole situation with whether or not it’s okay to age up characters. Especially for explicit content, or even just innocent (legal) ships. Has messed me up internally ever since the pandemic. It’s gotten so bad to the point that I’ve stopped uploading videos on this particular UA-cam account. Which for context, I started back when I was 17. Just a month or so before I turned 18. I’m constantly debating on whether I should get rid of all of the videos on my channel. Or if I should just leave them there and start a new channel. I feel semi guilty for just dropping the channel and not making any content for the literal 2000+ people who subscribed to me. Of course I wouldn’t upload anymore explicit content on here, but at the same time I know that’s what most of my subscribers want. So it’s just kind of hopeless to try to keep my viewers happy without it. Which sucks. With all that being said. The main thing that I want people to take away from this is: *DO NOT* go around calling people p3/d0philic. It might not be illegal to do so. But it does leave deep mental scars on people to be accused of a vile and disgusting crime. I haven’t ever even been accused of that and it still hurts. So please. Don’t always assume that having crushes on fictional minors automatically means that someone is a criminal. While fiction does affect real world people. It doesn’t always do that. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. And even then so. Different people interpret fiction differently. It's rarely ever the exact same. So you can’t always judge people based solely off of the fact that they like a fictional character and age them up. There’s more to a person than that. There are multiple aspects of a situation, pieces of context that are needed, and above all, a real person on the other side of the screen. And at that, a person that you don't completely know.
Hey, I agree with most of what you've said, and I'm a little bit late, but...have you perhaps heard of OCD? Because I suffered from something similar, almost to a life-threatening degree, and I was diagnosed with OCD because of it. Look up POCD in specific. I'm not saying you DO have it, I'm just saying it would've helped a lot if I knew for certain what it was back then.
I have actually seen a way the " 2,000 year old child" can be fixed: you just have to give them a reason to be in child form a lot,, but prove that they are adults by giving them an adult form that they go into every so often. Maybe introduce them in adult form too, also. ( if you've played ayakashi romance reborn, you know i got that idea from yura and gaku, ...although they kinda only introduce the adult forms later on in dawn chapter)
I can think of one example. Washu Hakubi from the Tenchi Muyo OVAs. She looks like she's 12, but that's because she's used her tech to keep her body like that. Back in the past and when she was in her adult form, she had a romance with a guy. She had a kid and... his upper class family took the baby away because they did not approve of her and her lower class status. She decided to stay in her child form as an act of rebellion against adult rules and to never have to deal with adult issues ever again. She still can turn into an adult, but more of a gag for the most part.
I actually have a charcater like this! She's really old but uses a more child like appearance to get people to not yell at her when in reality she looks like an old edritchen being when not using this form
@@Jynxxx5 nel I was also about to mention her but I see you beat me to the punch by a yeari love her she's adorable in her child form and an absolute badass in her adult form I hope you see this comment and can't wait to see her again in action in her adult form in the thousand year blood war anime of bleach no spoilers please if you're watching part 2 of it
Kid here! (15) I think that aging up characters is only messed up if it's specifically for sexualizing said character. It's the difference between aging up characters in, say, Miraculous Ladybug to write smut, and something more like "Back to Us" where the protagonists are aged up by 7 years, and the narrative focuses on how things have changed as they have entered adulthood. There are technically sexual content but it isn't the focus of the fic. I feel like aging up characters should be treated on a case by case basis. Regardless of the morality of aging characters up, I don't think people should be crucified for doing that on the internet if it's clear that said characters *are* adults. Honestly, just avoid aged up content if it makes you uncomfortable, because engaging it will just bring you more of said content. I personally don't appreciate a lot of instances of aging up, for example, Yandere Dev setting characters in high school and then being like "lol btw they're all 18." All I'll say is that I encourage artists and writers to emphasize their adulthood to avoid falling into bait-and-switch territory. If you don't wanna, then ok whatever that's your business-- EDIT: BHHFJDKDKSKS YEAH U MENTIONED YANDEV
Agreed. I have no qualms when aging up is done with the purpose of exploring adulthood. That is at least transformative. It's not even that I think there's anything wrong with people enjoying sexual things, I just get tired of folks projecting eroticism onto _everything_. There are literally so many works of fictions about adults that they could get their fix with but they choose to age up under-aged characters. It especially bothers me when people do this with children's media characters.
For me, it all depends on context. For example, they're being aged up for a Next-Gen fic because they were a child in the canon. Alright, that's okay as long as it isn't mostly for the next context: Aging them up solely to sexualize them. A good example of this is Eri from My Hero Academia, in the canon she's six years old, but even just googling her names brings up some...results, to put it simply. *i also found a body pillow of a non-aged up Eri while googling this stuff and I ain't religious but even I had to go to a fucking priest after seeing some of this shit*
If you're familiar with the Erin Clover drama I can't be the only one who finds it very off that people are targeting Erin Clover in particular for the sexualisation of minors even though there's loads of people who have been guilty of doing so in the MHA fandom. While I think Erin has her faults I feel the cancellation of her is a bit weird.
It's not just MHA but literally entire websites such as pixiv and nhtai. People have been doing this for years and it baffles me that people are targeting this random singular person for doing the same thing
Exacly, one motive that never made me think about "aging up characters is bad" is because, since I started surfing on the internet in my early 11 years this stuff already existed. Like, I remember searching about naruto with my brother on google images and scrolling down and down, he ( who was older) found a NSWF YAOI fanart from the boys, he didn't let me see it ( he teased and joked about it) but I ALREDY HAD the knowledge that existed, and I tried to avoid it until I got the age to be interested in it( which was 17 for smut fanfic and 18 for any h*ntai/josei sm*t stories). And now, in pinterest what you more see is fanarts from shounens boys, in all types of situations and poses. People are doing this for ages, why just now that we are having these witch hunts? Quarantine seems to havw affected people in more than one way.
I know this was a year ago, but the thing with the Erin Clover drama is that after it, people really did stop fking with others who aged up characters for sexual reasons. Even outside of MHa, Erin just brought it to light. Aging up definitely existed before, just new people were shown to it and thought about it for a bit.
Im so confused on why drawing characters as adults is always so wrong. Like... And What really bothers me is even when a character is an adult people will just dance around that and be like "MINOR CODED MINOR CODED" because the very clearly adult character looks a bit girly or is short.
FFS, being mentally young isn’t the same as being physically young. It feels so stupid having a childish adult character be completely off limits for NSFW. I get the whole staying in character thing but let others treat them how they want.
I have two ocs I ship with tmnt characters, they are just friends during their teen years but after 7 years or whatever when they are adults they after hardship become couples. I aged them up because I wanted too, I thought it would have more depth and character progression to do so, so the argument of “you adults only age them up to nsfw them.” Doesn’t hold up. It honestly makes me uncomfortable since am aroace and tend to make my characters ace cause it would cause discomfort. Even if they weren’t ace it would be horrible to assume that is why people age them up. I have seen people be like “age them up.” Then say “you shouldn’t age them up your horrible!” It’s like they look for reasons to start something.
My take is that ageing child characters up JUST to make NSFW of them is a little strange, but not illegal. Honestly I prefer to age the characters up for an AU that takes place like a few years after the movie/show/comic happened. I mostly find it weird if you’re ageing up kids under 16 for NSFW.
As someone who’s 17 I’ll chip in my 2 cents It really depends on what reason. If you’re making an older/future au than it’s fine but if you’re doing it solely for sexualization and nsfw ( even if you make them look distinctly adult it’s still a bit sketchy ) I do disagree with you mentioning people not caring about the source material sexualizing minors bc as someone who was in the danganronpa fandom ( and ig is still into danganronpa?? Idk ) people definitely call out the sexualization of the characters and sometimes redesign them. I’m not sure if it’s present in other fandoms ( I do think some people call out some of the choices made in mha regarding certain characters )
just wanna correct you on one part - unless its specifically about the warriors of hope, no danganronpa character is actually a minor, especially by the time the entire DR1-SDR2-DR3 saga is wrapped up.
@@cosmic_heartz6480 v3 ages are then up to interpretation, since none of them have canon ages. you cant really confirm or deny if any of them are minors
@@yonaga-san4311 They’re unconfirmed, but definitely implied, as they a,l call themselves high schoolers and are seen wearing school uniforms in the beginning, where presumably, that’s their ‘real’ selves.
I honestly created a character to poke fun at the "oH sHe'S AcTuAlY 100 yEaRs OlD" trope and created a tomato man that has been alive to 2 years and has the mind and body of a 26 year old. He would of been over a hundred, if he wasn't given an anti aging formula when being created (cause the first had died of old age with in 3 weeks). I've even added a love interest that will help the tomato grow as a character. TLDR: I make tomato man to make fun of creeps that prey on bs 100 year old children.
I know this was like, the most brief thing you said in the video, but THANK YOU for pointing out that just because you personally don't like something, doesn't mean it's problematic! A lot of people seem to have the mindset that if something makes *them* uncomfortable, they have to find a reason for it to be *universally* uncomfortable and wrong. I think this comes from both feeling like your dislike of something is invalid if there isn't *actually* something morally wrong about it. For example, I think it's pretty darn weird to be attracted to fictional characters. It's odd that people can be attracted to cartoons and drawings that don't even resemble real-life people. But you don't see me going around calling it zoophilia or something to find a fictional character attractive. Just because *I* don't like it doesn't mean it's *objectively bad.* I also wanted to add that almost ANYTHING can be interpreted as problematic if you think about it too much. This does NOT apply to everything, but in some cases, people need to take a step back and realize that *it isn't that deep.* Now, I don't mean that just because something is fictional no use of it can be harmful, but I'm saying that there are many cases where people are getting super worked up over something that it's clear they just over-interpreted. Please, before attacking people impulsively, take a step back, think about how you got to the conclusion you did, and ask yourself if it's actually rational.
I love that JoJos meme where someone erased all the unnecessary lines and crosshatching and stuff from a picture of Jotaro and the only comments were "HOLY SHIT! THERE'S AN ACTUAL 16 YEAR OLD UNDER ALL THOSE LINES!" Like ya, Jotaro looked at least 21 in that art style, can't base age off of art style.
I'm a crime buff and have seen the horrific parts of reality to the point that I will delve into fantasy any chance that I get. When aging up comes into play, I tend to ignore it because I don't care enough to remind these people that unless it crosses into reality, nothing can be done about it. Even then, I have a hard time believing in people who try using fantasy as their reason for doing something, especially when they are found competent enough to stand trial for what they've done. And yes, that excuse has been used as a defense in several murder cases. I don't have a problem with aging up. I have a problem with people wishing and threatening real world violence on people over fantasy. If you don't like aging up, avoid it. Don't sit there and pretend you have the moral high ground over fiction. Your morality should be focused on real world problems, not if some artist drew a character aged up. And the fact that pedophilia is slapped on anything that has to do with a minor shows that those whining have no clue what they are talking about. There was an incident months ago where some underage kid tried to justify using the word incorrectly by stating their own abuse when it came to anyone who aged up at the child. I had to remind them that they were the victim of a predator, not someone who aged up kids since those who aged up kids were not interested in children as they were. The only reason I even intervened was because they were painting any and all adults in fandoms as pedos and they were getting quite the following over it. It was quite insulting.
‘Guess what buttercup’ was that a powerpuff girls reference? 👀 (ps ilu and am super proud that you always make videos on what you think could create good discussion even if it can be seen as a spicy take, i really like hearing your thoughts on these kinds of things and i know i’m not alone 💖)
I made a baby OC that at first wasn't suppose to be a baby at all, after like 2 years or so I decided to age her up to a kid. It fun because as I grow up so does the character. Also as a Asexual I don't ever plan or want to think of this OC in anything....."Weird"
Backwards hand baby Bubbles is the real problematic thing we should be talking about. That means you're CANCLED BECAUSE LOOK AT THAT RIGHT THERE, IT'S ALL OVER THE SCREEN. YOU CAN'T EDITED IT TO BE CORRECT HALF WAY THROUGH AND PRETEND WE DIDN'T NOTICE. (This is joke, I must add that because this is the internet.)
I think it's a very muddy conversation, If someone is "aging up" a character without any changes or aspects of the design to make it clear they're older purely for the purpose to put them in sexual or violent situations and excusing it by slapping an "Aged Up!" sticker on it, even though they've drawn them exactly how they are in the show. E.G. there's a character from an anime I'm insterested in who is 12 years old, couple months back I was checking out the explore page on instagram, lo and behold, a post of NSFW artwork of this character shows up (As a vague description, The character had been drawn wearing skimpy lingerie in a overtly sexual pose). the caption said "Aged Up! she's 18!" when they had still drawn her body as child-like and her facial features were still that of a 12 yr old, she looked exactly the same as her design within the show except drawn provocatively. I think in situations like *those* aging up characters is wrong.
This reminds me when my younger friends tried to demonize their substitute teacher for having Sailor Moon on his laptop background. I had to remind them how old Sailor Moon's media is and that he probably grew up watching it the same way I did.
Technically, if the character is between 15-17. Aging them up to be between 18-23. You don't drastically change that much. Maybe you have phases where your physical appearance may change, but personality-wise...Not really. You don't start changing personality-wise until your around your mid 20's and then on. Again, once the character has been aged up. They are no longer a minor. Period. Sorry not sorry but this is fact. If you cannot tell otherwise, maybe you should question your own morals, rather than throwing a serious claim around like Pedophilia or Grooming, *to a bunch of pixels* If your so easily triggered by fiction, that is a YOU problem. Not the content creator that can very clearly separate their content they consume, with their sense of reality. You guys can argue amongst yourselves underneath my post. I'm not gonna argue with a bunch of idiots that think fiction is *Eaxtly. The. Same.* as reality. When it's very clearly, not.
Plz no argue. Only discuss. ;~; For real tho, be kind to each other in the comments when debating these things. At the end of the day we're just talking opinions on fiction here. So ya know, find a chill vibe for it. ✌ Although on that note I do think it's interesting when people talk about fiction being the same as reality. I haven't personally come across someone with that exact view before but the sentiment of 'art reflects reality' and 'media influences behaviour' is pretty common and I find those concepts pretty cool to mull over. So far I've only been offered arguments along the lines of media influences the youth and while not completely without merit I haven't yet heard an argument that had me thinking certain topics or themes should be taboo. Still down to hear any opinions about it tho. Anyways, happy comment scrolling.
@@MaliMalware I only said arguing bc I know how people tend to have a Knee-jerk reaction to reply with a hate-comment simply bc I support this kind of aging up lmao. I personally think that if you cannot separate fiction from reality, you need mental help/a better coping mechanism. If everything fictional was real, we'd be a destroyed planet with the amount of fictional bad guy's that wanna destroy it lmao...
I'm glad I found this in my recommended section! I was actually really curious about this, and wasn't sure how to go about it. Having recently reached adulthood myself, I realized that some of my favourite characters are a little on the younger side and would be problematic to write about in some contexts. I considered aging them up, to be more fit with my age and easier to write about. Even so, despite all that, I feel like I haven't aged a day past 14. Regardless, I still try to be ethical in any way I can
I have an AU where the minor character is aged up to his 20s, and he's clearly drawn as older, but I can see how people would have a problem with that.
i know it isn’t illegal to draw someone aged up just to draw them in inappropriate situations, but it’s still really gross and weird to me, like as a minor, if someone aged up one of my ocs i would be really grossed out..though i understand your points
Thank you for making this video! While there are parts I disagree with (I feel it's fairly natural to slowly have feeling die for a character who is younger than you because of the disconnect between an adult and youth life, especially if the aged up version keeps them in high school) I find myself agreeing with a lot of your other points. This video was an eye opener and a very enjoyable watch.
Aw thanks! I'm glad you got something to chew on out of the video. I do worry people feel they need to complete agree or disagree with these things. So it's good to hear you got something out of it while still disagreeing with the odd thing here and there. 🌟 Thanks for taking the time to take a listen to it.
Both myself and a friend had a sudden realisation when we turned 18 that we were no longer allowed to like things we had loved since being 12. My tastes from that time are literally the exact same as now, I’m still super into the same series and characters and I still find comfort in them for the same reasons as before. It was confusing but now I just accept what I like and don’t worry since I never even processed ages of those characters to begin with (anime characters aren’t exactly easy to tell the age of in the first place).
Great video! One fandom which seems to be VERY loud about its characters ages and the art made of them, is 'Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'. The characters are, as the name of the show says, teenagers. And oh my, the fandom is very quick to make that exact statement each time they see any sort of mature content made of the main characters. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this fandom and the show/movie. But personally I have to say that many versions of the TMNT brand "suffer" from the tittle. I do not view the characters as teenagers, but they are written as such, much for the reason of the brand itself. Not viewing the characters as minors in the first place is of course NOT parafilic, but nowadays on the internet you will immediately get called a p€d. I see this as just hurtful behavior. In some situations calling people out in this way MAY be justified, but it shouldn't be an accusation just thrown around any time people see what they don't like. People need to just walk away in these situations. Also sidenote, to some these accusations of being a p€d can be extremely hurtful. For example, people with ocd, compulsive and intrusive thoughts. You can very much send someone spiraling, so to everyone, just be mindful of what you are accusing people of. I'm not saying that mental health issues justify bad behavior, absolutely not. But it's good to acknowledge that people's minds work in different ways.
i so relate to the growing out of fictional characters bit, it was such a weird feeling turning 18 and 19 and realizing all the characters that are as old as or older than you that you had a crush on are suddenly considered minors and it was really uncomfortable and weird to think about because i myself didnt even feel atall like an adult yet and the characters i liked didnt atall feel like kids and yet thinking of them in any romantic or sexual way would be considered extremely bad. It is a weird thing to go through, time passes so fast i partly disagree with the part after though. Minors can absolutely be pedophiles or groomers. if a 14 year old drew porn of 6 year old children, fictional or not, thats still messed up
see, i labored over this particular problem after aging out of the acceptable age bracket to still have a crush on death the kid from soul eater. i was 11 when i became obsessed with him, and felt bad for still thinking he was cute by the time i was 17-18. aging out of your fictional crush's age bracket as a child is crushing because it makes you wish they would just age with you!
This!!! I've had a crush on Kenny from South Park ever since I was around 9-10 (no clue why I was watching SP at that age). When I picture him, it's always him as my age (17) instead of him as a child (even thinking about Kenny as a child freaks me out and makes me panic).
I honestly find these hot takes so tiring. Especially cause most ppl ignore the same stuff that is actually handled horrible in canon as fine while passing heavy judgements for the same practices when done by fans. Don‘t get me wrong. I do not enjoy the dragon maid bs at all. And any toddler or kid character written their age and sexualized is definitely unethical and probably illegal too so I‘m not gonna defend that. But what I am willing to defend is aging up if done right and AU‘s. There‘s a clear difference between a genuine age up and a fake one done only for law evasion when producing what essentially is CP. and I‘d call the genuine one the material that treats said characters as mature ones and makes that part of the characters person and behavior. A good age up always has maturity in it. Not to mention if it‘s sexual also that maturity plus comprehension of consent and stuff. All that would be present. And I‘d argue one could feel that sense of maturity when reading that kind of fanwork while the other extreme will also leave a reader with a strong sense of something being off. Mainly a character acting like a child. Wich is as far as i know the actual appeal for the more dodgy fans. If a character aged up acts and looks mature and experienced all of that appeal would logically pass so it‘d make no sense to demonize one for shipping that kind of character due to the clear adulthood present. In general it does annoy me how black and white the thinking around this is for younger fans though and your point about them being hit with the same issue upon maturing is really true. You simply can‘t just drop all of your favorite media and especially that when you‘re neurodivergent and also have compfort characters. They grow up with you in your mind and revisiting shows may often make you see them in a different light. Just as an example, when i was 15 I was into Sasuke and Naruto when I was a fan. Now I‘m into Kakashi due to my own life experience as a 22 year old as well as me finding him more relatable due to his maturity. But that‘s also partially thanks to the genuine portrayal of these ages. I always felt like Naruto Characters acted their ages so that makes sense for me now. I couldn‘t consider Sasuke or Naruto hot anymore in their pre 20‘s state cause it‘s too immature for me. But beyond that is a different story. If only for Naruto. They changed him in Boruto and I like that Mature Naruto a lot more in fact. Again for the same reasons as Kakashi. But then there‘s also shows like Jojo. And those shows write characters to be under 18 while looking and acting like 25 or 30. and this is where the problem arises I belive. People can‘t see that child abuse isn‘t just about the number. It‘s also about character behavior and looks. I can‘t for the life of me get into dating some harvest moon male characters cause they look like children wich puts me off despite them supposedly being adults, but I do see how someone could be into one of those Jojo dudes. They look nothing like a child would. Not in a single way. And neither do they act immature ebnough to read as children. If anything it might be a joke by the author since he doesn‘t seem to take himself too seriously either. So really why are we ignoring actual child abuse while calling out people who are attracted to clearly adult characters? I mean, isn‘t the point to call out people who are into children? You know, ones who look like and act like kids? Not grown men who look like 30 but claim to be 13? That‘s what we should worry about. Not the stated ages in media since we clearly know as with Dragonmaid, how this is used to evade clear CP. and that‘s a real issue when the attraction actually is targeted towards toddlers visually and behaviorally. And when said thing is fetishized wich is common in Anime and Manga broadly. Let‘s not beat around the bush. Fandom can be creepy too. But there‘s more nuance than black and white thinking. And said nuance shouldn‘t be ignored for the sake of shutting everyone down and punishing the wrong people in the crossfire. Because after all media isn‘t there to play out perfectly and with no content that breaches any utopian fantasy rules. That‘s absurd and media will never restrict itself to that level and neither should it. There‘s still value in implying these horrid acts to teach us they are bad and why they are. If we didn‘t, we‘d just lie to ourselves about our reality. Same goes for any other horrible thing happening unjustly. We need to at least in some forms of media depict these things in a way that does educate and moralizes these things in appropriate ways. Otherwise media will just lose it‘s purpose. So really, if you wanna censor art to the point where nobody can engage with media with minors in it when they are grown ups, you‘ll just create a totalitarian relationship with art. Because in the end art is a creative outlet. It‘s leasure to endulge in it. And normally children, as in real children don‘t get harmed if a jojo character is shipped. So really if you are a minor yourself just look at all the stuff you like and picture it all gone into the bin once the clock hits 18. how much would be left for you? And do you think that restricting yourself from all minors in fiction, not reality is actually doing anything productive for you? Because I‘d argue if anything it‘d just limit you from consuming practically anything. Because believe it or not, most media has some minors in it, and that does also include romance in canon between said characters. And who wrote it? Most likely a adult author.
it hits deep, when i was 13 i liked a ship between n (from pokemon) and one of the protagonits, and one of my favs pokemon creators asked in their story about their follower fav ships. i enterd my ship and the creator called me out (my comment but without my name) called me gross and horibble and then blocked me. they are an adult and i was a child who simply liked a ship. it really hurted my feelings, and i thought they really hate me personally , i understnd the whole "protect the children no bad ships" thing, but you literally hurted a child. you didnt stopped a "pedo" you arent a "hero" you bullied a child cause of fictional ppl !!!!!!! srry, its really somethig that botherd me.
I'm glad to see someone finally alking about the whole growing older than the character you crush on thing. I've been too scared of terminally online teenagers calling me out to bring it up myself. It's also worth noting that cultural differences can make a major difference i how characters are perceived. For eg, high school in my country is very different to in places like Japan and the US, so characters in those settings always read as far older than they actually were (like high school was defined for me by the lack of freedom, meanwhile american tv shows would depict teens able to act with as much autonomy as an adult - this meant as a kid, and even as a young adult, I would see characters in these shows as older than me), especially since writers don't seem to understand how to write teenagers.
This is something I've struggled with since I became an adult. I still have fictional crushes on characters who don't age, or don't have confirmed ages, and now im afraid to admit any of it for fear that people will throw out the pedo label, or I'll get cancelled or something. Im glad to see other people also feel this way. I don't think aging up characters should really matter, as long as you aren't aging up like a super young character just for sexual stuff. Fictional characters are just that, fiction. I think people on the internet take this stuff way too seriously. If people are bothered by it, I wish they would just not interact with it, instead of making callouts and all this anti stuff. I also think a lot of the people against aging up, are minors themselves, and they won't really understand the concept until they become adults either.
This is the best video I've seen about this topic. I find that other people who are arguing against aged up characters are so flimsy and just poorly defended. Also for the 18+ content, in the US at least, aging up characters is legal as long as they deviate from the character's actual age, but that's more for real life content as far as I know (It's been a while because I learned that through a Ponder Sprocket video, and I'm not a lawyer or very knowledgable about the law either) soooooo fictional characters really don't count because shocker! They aren't real. And I think it's funny that a certain video had to point out that 18 year olds can be in highschool and like lambasting an artist for drawing 18+ content of an aged up character who was LITERALLY 18 IN HIGHSCHOOL!
I was honestly keeping my hands off the topic after seeing people arguing over and over again. But this video definitely helped me collect my own thoughts and examples. I finally know what to say and I thank you for it. ^^
In my opinion aging up characters isn’t wrong if it’s for like a AU or a video about what they think will happen in the future when they’re adults. But when it’s for shipping, like for some ships I’ve seen it’s a minor x adult and people have to age up a person just for the ship I find it wrong, if you have to age up a person just for a ship it shouldn’t be a ship.
If you look at a character and you get the idea to age them up for a sexual fan art/writing, you are attracted to that character already before aging them up. The idea came from somewhere and that somewhere is attraction.
I know this video is already two years old but I want to say thank you so much for bringing it out there, I'm so glad someone expressed their thoughts I relate to, so much better than I did so far on the topic.
Ah yes, if I hadn't written the poorly disguised anime-plagiarized, self-insert stories in my grade school and high school days, I dunno where I'd be. I learned a lot from writing them, and I still have the original manuscripts to remind myself that we all had to start somewhere.
It depends. This isn't right if your only goal is to pair them with an adult or make them do something that wouldn't be acceptable in their original age group. Otherwise, nothing to worry about.
Look, as a minor, I'll give my VERY honest opinion. I don't care if you age them up. It's pretty much the best option you have. Not because you don't want to be called a p*do, but because you feel uncomfortable writing a minor doing something 18+. I know, it sounds weird since I'm putting my opinion into this (because I can't read 18+ stuff), but really, I don't see the problem. And really? I'm actually scared of growing up because I don't want to be called a p*do for liking a character I have always liked since my teen years, BECAUSE THEY NEVER AGE. I feel worried that I'll have to give up characters I like because of the fact that I will get older, and they won't. So age them up. It doesn't mean that you fantasise about a fictional character as a minor and wrote them as an adult because you don't want to get bashed. If that's the case, then I'll REALLY feel uncomfy. I really wish people would stick to "Don't like, don't read". I won't hate you or anything for not feeling comfortable reading anything with an aged up character. It depends on you. Just don't go harassing people and throwing around a term that is used to depict adults who literally r*pe and gr*om minors IRL, because that does harm real people. And anyways, most fanfictions I've read don't only age them up solely for 18+ stuff. It can also be for drinking, driving, etc. Or because they thought that whatever scenario they would put the character in felt more like something an adult would do, and not a teenager (or maybe because they just felt like it). I'm so sorry for such a long ass reply, but I'm just frustrated with the number of people bashing others for writing or drawing content that they could easily avoid. No one's forcing you to consume the content. It's very easy to change their age, because at the end of the day, they were MADE to be teenagers by whoever made the characters. They were produced by a thought. If it's easy to age them down for flashbacks when they were kids, why can't you age them up? (Anyways I'll take my leave I've talked long enough) And if anyone does reply, please don't fight, this is just my opinion
I don't think aging up characters is problematic. What I find disturbing is that they age minors to ship them with adults. The perfect exemple is Frans (from Undertale) Frisk is a child. The game mentions it, even the avatar is showing it. Sans is an adult. They age Frisk up to ship them with Sans. That's disturbing.
I totally agree! I get the whole idea that Sans is undead, hence he can't die of age, but it's still weird to ship a human with a skeleton even if they fix the problem with Frisk being underage.
Another kind of aged up that I think could also be addressed (in the segment where you bring up where aging up doesn't work) is aging up an underage character, but they're still underaged, like, for example, aging up a 6-year-old character to be 16, or aging up a 13-year-old character to be 17, or aging up an 8-year-old character to be 12, or even aging up a 16-year-old character to be 17. This doesn't seem as common though, and I've never seen any instances of it happening, but I also don't think it's out of the realm of possibility, nor do I believe that it's never been done before. And, yeah, if you're sexualizing an aged up character, but the character is still at an underaged age, then that's pretty bad. (Unless it's a minor doing this to make the character either the same age as them or close to them in age, then that's different.)
Tbh, in my opinion Aging up characters are always okay =-= As long as the intentions of aging up the characters is not for sexual needs, it should be okay👍
Honestly, I think it all comes down to your reasoning. If you're aging characters up solely for the purpose of sexualizing them- its kinda iffy But, if it's a fictional show and something like- lets say South Park. Since South Park is an adult show though all of the main characters are 4th graders, I'd say aging them up in your fanworks and art is perfectly fine. But if it's a genuine kids show like Octonauts or something similar then I don't think you should be doing that, y'see where I'm coming from?
Here’s my opinion on ageing up characters before really watching the video. Intention is what defines if it’s problematic or harmless. Problematic intentions tend to be things like ageing kid characters up so they’re able to pair them up with characters who are already adults and the sole purpose of sexualising them so you can get your rocks off. This is strictly characters who are children though. Neither of these things should be an issue if the character isn’t a minor anymore. The only time I can see the sexualisation of a character who’s in their late teens is if that’s meant to show they rely on this sexualisation of themselves for financial reasons, social reasons or even romantic relationship reasons, although that’s not the sexualisation of a character solely so they’re sexually appealing, it’s using the sexualisation of that character to show a serious problem in their life they’re going through. Thoughts may change after watching the video.
A very peculiar topic to talk about, and I agree that these sort of things are more case by case. They're character that people are going to like that are portraited as minors (or look like minors but are ancient beings. Tomato.. tomatoe ), alot of it is unescapable due to the story/setting and how the creator envisions their story, which most of the time the characters are minors. And those creators are adults, the content is worked on by teams of adults, the panty shot and/or revealing shot in some of those shows (lets not forget animated) are done by adults. If those that are in such an uproar over aged up characters, then they should be going after the source material as well if they feel so strongly against it. It's just bizarre to me this is over fictional characters, if we are following said logic then why wasn't their any bloody uproar over twilight fandom spin off? That was a fanfic and they aged up the main character, and that chaos of a fic got turned into a 3 movie series.
My personal gripe from this entire debatable topic is how very little people honestly are willing to debate as a whole because, instead of having honest meaningful discussions/discourse, instead we get constant people standing on a "moral high ground" as well constant misidentification when it comes to what is the meaning behind said art and just go to instant which trials, and that is honestly what I have been seeing here while these people are technically no better by their own logic and if they are honestly here for a discussion they would've easily realized what they're doing is mislabeling at best and it's slanderous at worst. Seeing these people in action, as much as I like to believe they are simply misguided and just don't know any better, I am not very smart myself, hell I'm not even an artist. So it bothers me that topics like this I know what kinds of categories should I list to see what is valid and what isn't, at the age of 17. So arguably these people should've learned the differences at this point and them only sticking to their ignorance is an excuse not an honest reason why they don't know this. My take for why this might be the case is that people around my age and younger are terminally online for so long for months if not years on end, they latch on these ideas and never bothered challenging said ideas and stick with it. Similar situation have happened like for the longest time people assume Lion King ripped off Kimba the white lion, even though nothing what they say adds up when you the full context of the situation, but since most people were in a mob mentality they never honestly asked themselves the basic of questions. So the fact a situation like this exist. Tells me the majority of people never bother challenged themselves this on this topic alone.
Oops, I made a dumb comment about the art without seeing the rest of the video. Now, I'm going to instead say that I love the art, and it's adorable! (If curious, I was like, "The thumb's on the wrong side of the hand" when it changed, lol)
So glad to see a video like this! I remember back when I was growing up, I would compare my age to different characters like certain checkpoints. y'know like "I'm finally the same age as the Ninja Turtles! :D" but that only lasts so long and eventually you will be an adult. There are two main problems. One, as mentioned in the video, no one should be expected to just stop passionately loving a character once they hit 18. Two, another thing that I think is important to address is that most content that is popularly consumed in these spaces have main casts almost entirely made up of minors. whether this is preteens or teens, coming of age stories are one of the most popular kinds of stories. So odds are unless I'm watching content that is explicitly geared towards adults, my choices of adult characters to get attached to are going to be VERY small. And saying that someone isn't allowed to feel a connection with the vast majority of the cast is just gatekeeping the whole thing. I personally am not extremely attached to any of the main cast in MHA in that way, but I could 100% see how a young adult might get attached and want to selfship with Deku after adjusting the ages or something.
I'm a big Shun x Seiya fan, basically while in the main series both are 13 years old. In omega they are in their late 30s. Now I write them as adults, Shun wants to be a doctor so I give him that profession. Also I'm fine with sexualisation if it's obvious they are adults.
I was thinking about this debate a week ago, when I was drawing my own "aged-up" versions of the PPG. The show ages them up in an episode, with a timeskip, so I especially dont see much issue with reimagining their personalities - they were painfully copy-paste cringy 😅. I think, when we like characters as children, the characters grow up with us in our minds - subconsciously - especially if we resonate with them in any way.
In my opinion: I think aging up characters for an au like for example aging up Eri(from bnha) to be a prohero, or aging up Peter Parker to his late 30s and having a happy family, is fine as long it isn't werid or gross.
Something that's bothered me with this topic a lot lately is in one of my newest fandoms, Little Nightmares. On one hand, you have the protagonists who are all children, around 9 years old as far as I'm aware. Then you have the fan work and aus that can be anything between slight changes to canon, high school aus, aus where they may be adults (example, mafia-esque aus are fairly common from my experience). Yet (spoilers for the second game): I have seen people posting puppy crush art of the kids who get called creeps, while people making art of them making out or is slightly suggestive expressions and poses who just get praise or likes and nothing. Then, two grown adults have even more problems apparently. The Thin Man/The Lady is a popular ship of two FULLY GROWN ADULTS who I've seen artists and shippers of them get called pedophiliac because: 1. "They're just aged up from the children" One of them is canonically a grown adult of one of the kids, but he's very obviously an adult and different. The other one is an adult who has no confirmed connection like this other than fan theories, and a lot of the shippers like that theory of her being the older version of the other child. Again, this isn't even fan aging up, this is canon ages. 2. "She's like 20s and he's 60s" They don't have confirmed ages anywhere I've seen besides being very obviously old, and even if you chose 20s and 60s from their designs those are still grown adults and not pedophiliac. Can people stop throwing that word around like it's a playground insult? Be upset at the suggestive art of 9 year olds, not the puppy crushes, wholesome, or canon adult fanart.
I have yet to ask a therapist about it but I plan to, as aging down self inserts is something I'd like to do as well, partly because I'd like to reclaim my childhood a little and partly because I have some ideas for an interesting (imo) story
Imo, it really depends. Aging up a character for normal reasons like just wanting to draw them grown up is ok. But aging them up just to sexualize them is weird.
I personally only find a issue if the character is extremely young such as eri in mha, but other characters that are 16 older I don't mind at all, especially because in the UK (where I am) 16 is the legal age of consent
Thank you for this. As someone who was into a particular ship during my teens, I used to create art, write and rp this stuff. But I forcibly stopped my self from creating this stuff. Long story short. I discovered that my own dad (Who at that point I hadnt seen since i was 3)was a p🐻do when I 16. It was really hard to disconnect myself from him, and when I reflected on my interests, my art and seeing comments all over tiktok and pinterest that I was a p🐻do because I aged up particular character. This fear has been eating and eating at me. Not only did I emotionally loose my dad who I had spent my entire childhood looking for, I also ended up abandoning one of my own only forms of coping mechanisms at the time. It seemed for a while there that it was only getting worse and worse
The only problem I have with aging up characters is if they don't change the design at all. Sure, if the character is 16, I don't expect anyone to change it too much. BUT if you take a 10yo character and barely change the design then defend it with "I aged them up, it's just my style" I cannot endorse that.
Me at 15/16: simps for 17 year old character. Me at 18: *ages characters up to 18* Me literally still in high school... I don't see a problem with this. But if a 30 year old man ages up like a 9-year-old to a 19-year old that's kinda sus. As others have said it's a case-by-case thing.
It's so noticeable when fan fiction writers only age up a character in a smut to cater to the readers. It's even more annoying because the character will still have the same qualities they had when they were a minor, it's like when 2 kids dress up as a tall man in movies. It would be better if the writers made them more adult-like but they think being an adult is only knowing where y/n's sweet spot is. They water down the character to be an adult with a high sex drive which is awful when the character is actually nothing like that and also takes away the personality from the character which made so many people like them in the first place. It's as if the writers only liked the character for their looks so they don't mind if they change the character's personality. This is also my issue with "fanon characters" but I won't get into that.
The thing that I always say is to try to understand the intent of the art. I've been writing a fic that is kind of a coping mechanism bc Steven Universe is a character I look at and go "Yeah. That's me." He was a minor up until the end of the series, but had clearly aged. He is clearly a vector to talk about the struggles of aging and growing. And I want to use him as a vector for some of My experiences, but some of them are So Dark that I feel scared to depict in a fandom full of teenage minors that have been watching since they were tiny children. I could just write to write it for myself, but I get no enjoyment out of art if I can't show anybody.
Ngl this topic confuses me probably because im abit too young to understand but listening the part i do understand i kinda actually agree because it makes sense.
Thanks for taking a peek at this video!
I am hoping to stream at some point about this topic, so let me know if you have opposing opinions and thoughts in the comments or keep an eye out for that stream so I can read your lovely ideas and see if any of my own are changed!
Also! I’ve seen so many comments get snatched up by UA-cam and deleted. So guys try to censor yourselves when commenting a bit so youtube doesn’t Thanos snap you before I can even read them all.
For the record Mali I will be stealing your jacket and using it for the winter session >:)
the childs hand is broken
Are u gay
the little girls hand in your drawing is on wrong /gen /lh
TLDW: No, and you're a moron for thinking so.
Me personally the worst part is when it comes to characters where nobody is exactly sure what the ages of a character is. I deal with that constantly as a cookie run fan. So I get a first row seat to watching kids attack each and calling each other pedos for art of characters we might not even be sure is a kid lol
Dammit I edit it a little and Mal’s like vanished… rip 😞
I have returned your heart
@@MaliMalware thank you 😌
Or like in OK KO
@@couldntcomeupwithacleverna7417 Or with a lot of cartoons now I think about it
For me, it's only sus when it's clear you're sexualizing the youthful aspects of the character or are just slapping an 18 label on them without doing the work to actually interpret the character as an adult.
Agree completely 🖐️
Yeah like, what would you find as s*xual material in a fictional child character? It’s obviously not real, but it’s morally wrong.
YESSS!!
this!
Yeah, if u need a good example of aging up characters then I recommend lechee doodle. She aged up ppg characters with actual good designs, making them look old and mature, yet still keep the youthful and fun spirits
Honestly, I reeeaaally miss the days of "don't like, don't read"
It greatly frustrates me how much people freak out now and act as though everything that exists absolutely MUST cater to their triggers, even if they've actively BYPASSED trigger warnings to interact with something just to attack the creator.
Another argument that I've seen regarding things like aging up is from minors actively engaging with content they SHOULDN'T be (18+ stuff) and getting mad that because (very DISTINCTLY and VISIBLY aged up or even CANONICAL adult) characters are from popular media and are engaging with certain preferences or toxic things is harmful for the minors that engage with it???
Which I just???
I KNOW minors tend to engage with adult content. I was a teen once, too. That said, it's still not MADE FOR minors and absolutely should NOT be catering to them.
The meme from the Arthur show where his little sister sees a "keep out" sign and says "this sign can't stop me cause I can't read" fits very well.
There is a clear warning and they chose to dismiss it
The only moment I'd say getting annoyed is even slightly fine is if there's no form of warning or anything.
Yes I definitely agree with this but if ypu wnat to watch 8t even though it says minor warning I don't care but if you're going to ypu better not go in the comments and say you shouldn't be doing this im a minor
Isn't that the whole point of "Dead Dove; Do Not Eat"? If the person clearly lists potential triggers and you still click on it, that's on you.
@@TuesdaysArt yeah but not everyone understands what it means and some apps and platforms don't use it much so people wouldn't pay it much mind
I don't find it problematic depending on what it is deemed attractive about the character in the first place. At the end of the day, many of the characters are written by adults and their personalities and maturities will reflect that, in which case the attraction would be to the design and the personality, not necessarily the youth aspect. Furthermore, there are plenty of cases with designs that a character design can be treated as ranging anywhere from 14 to in their 30s with the only actual way to discern the age is through context of the story or just a blatant reference to their age by the author or other character within the work. This is not to be confused with the tropes of a 300 yr old demon in a toddler's body as there are clear attempts made to reflect that the child coded character is highly child coded. If a nsfw artist were to be commissioned to draw a character like Kim possible and they aged them up, it would not be at all because Kim possible is portrayed overtly to be a minor but because she was written to be capable and bright. Removed from the high school setting, her personality would be indistinguishable from a woman in her 20s given how well-travelled and dependable she is. Aging her up is not the clear admission to ebephilic attractions the debate around aging up characters makes the action seem. This is much more nuanced than it is being treated.
👍
Yessss, well said
I wrote a comment trying to express this and I now see that there was entirely no need. You explained what I was meaning to say perfectly and much better than I did.
I totally agree with you about Kim: who she is as a character can easily overshadow how she's a teenage girl (your basic average girl). Yeah, she's a resourceful, nimble bad-ass, but you can still ignore or accept her age if it makes things easier for you.
I feel the same way about Supergirl: In most incarnations, Kara's a fierce, headstrong bad-ass with little restraint but a good heart (and unconventional fashion sense). But's she's also generally a teenage girl who's often way in over her head. While this fact can make things a little awkward, she is no less likeable irrespective of her age. My dilemma is: do I ignore Kara's age, or do I accept that she's a teen superheroine and try to let go?
(Also a fun fact: The lady who voices Kara in 'DC Super Hero Girls' was also She-go, opposite 'Kim Possible', a pretty cool connection.)
Looking at Miraculous Ladybug for this one. They're like in highschool but uh , mm they don't look like it. Chat noir has a six pack and for what
Warning: long ass comment and mentions of p//dophillia
You have literally no fucking idea how much I needed this.
The moment I turned 18, a lot of things in my mind were all so blurry as a fan of many sorts of media that catered to teenagers.
I thought I had to IMMEDIATELY reject and deny all of the *fictional* crushes I had at 17 that were minors bc I thought I would be considered a monster and a p//dophile bc of it.
Not to mention that at age 15 I wrote a lot of self shipping stuff, still do but I was way more active in the past. Anyway, I happily wrote about other characters that were minors, and I aged them up bc I thought that them being still minors and totally unchanged in terms of maturity was pretty dubious.
I got accused of being a p//do. At age 15. And it traumatized me beyond belief. I thought I legitimately was going to harm a rl kid in the future bc of picturing myself w some fictional minor, *WHILE I WAS A MINOR MYSELF.*
Long story short: Pls, if ageing up makes u uncomfy, PLEASE JUST AVOID IT, don't go and harass the person behind the content. I understand better than anyone how tiring it can be to look at very dubious cases of ageing up characters and making you feel icky, I truly do. Just please. *No harassment.*
Oh god I'm really sorry you had to go through that and that people were making you think you were going down that route. Honestly I've always crushed on MHA characters since I was like 16 or 17 and legit only found out they're teens sometime last year once I hit 20 when I finally started watching the show (I originally only knew about the characters from RPs with my friend and clips but didn't watch the anime yet). The literal heart drop dude. Thank god at least I had both my friends there to reassure me that I didn't mess up and that they apparently didn't tell me the age at the time because they felt I'd probably panic a lot more since I wasn't very accepting of the aging up thing back then. I just wish more people would consider the points in the video rather than accuse people. It genuinely pisses me off that someone was legit labelled a p3d0 with no other evidence than "they make inappropriate MHA content so they'd probably do it irl"
I’m sorry this happened :( I went through a similar situation when I was 16 that also traumatized me and made me wary of “antis”
I miss the days of “don’t like don’t watch/read”
I don’t consider myself proship either though I kinda think both terms are dumb
@@cosmic_riff both terms are dumb and I honestly think both side can have good points, it just the arguments between them tend to be really stupid.
That exactly what happened to me, people thinks you change completly after become 18.
Omg yes! I had the same troubles when I was 16-17 and felt like having a crush on a 15 year old fictional boy [yurio from yoi) was wrong and i remember seeing posts about you are filthy, disgusting dirty or pedo if you are older and have a crush him even though i wad A YEAR OLDER THAN HIM and I just had to leave tumblr for a year back in 2016-2017. I came back and just applied the don't like don't read motto and avoided any antis because they have mentally exhausted me and manipulated me.
I remember a fanfic I made at age 19 for which today I would be canceled for by commentary puritans. I was 14 the same age as a character I was simping for even 2 years after the show ended. I wrote a fanfiction out of fun ans shipped one character from a group of OCs. I aged him and his Story up cause it was clear where he was headed after the series finally. I was 14 just as the character, but unlike him I aged, became an adult and for some reason have to cut out all of my teen crushes the day I turn 18.
That's what people forget....you can't beginn a crush as a teen and suddenly just throw it away cause you aged while the character is basically stuck in time. The most people I saw dismissing that sadly were teens who just didn't reach the point yet and call out people for aging
Lovely video
One day those teens shall join us in the old decrepit department and they shall feel our agony.
I hope you’re still having fun and writing fanfiction if that makes you happy. 🌟
I’m an adult and recently began crushing on the Persona 5 protagonist (thanks to a certain ASMRtist) and the amount of guilt and shame I feel because of this mindset is just ridiculous. I think quarantine has escalated things and there are more antis than ever before, watching peoples’ moves and policing their every thought. Another thing these youngins forget is you can be interested in sexual content even if you’re under 18. I read so many smut fics as a kid lol (but yes, what they access to should be limited)
@rae I'm 24 and feel like a boomer for saying it, but we as teens wouldn't even come to the idea to lecture adult artists. Like, you had to do something like tracing or stealing art or drawing nsfw of existing minors to catch the shitstorm innocent shipping gets you today
It was killua wasn't it-
See that’s exactly why I’m afraid to turn 18, I really don’t wanna be labeled as a pedo because I still find character attractive even though I’ve aged.
Growing up is problematic guys, let’s stay young
XD
Serving BlackPink realness
yes
personally i don't see a issue based on why your ageing the character up
I wish, I used to be so much happier😢😢
I really hope replies are civil in my comment but here goes:
I really don’t have a problem with aging up characters. Aging up teenagers to be adults is perfectly fine with me since they’re close to that age range to be an adult in a sense. (Say aging a 17 year old to be 27 so to speak)
It gets a little problematic when it’s a child (like 5 - 9) but really that’s where my grievances stop.
I really don’t like people for coming at others for something they don’t like. As the age old saying goes “don’t like, don’t read” “don’t like, don’t look”
I personally find people who age up characters for shipping/sexual stuff to be weird, not dangerous or problematic, just weird..
That being said, I won't go out of my way to "call out" or "expose" anybody but instead just go like "oh that's weird.." and move on with my day without making a single comment to them.
In my opinion as long as the aged up character looks older and is sexualized, then it's fine
What I don’t get is when people get disgusted by an adult version of a character being sexual.
Like
WHAT DO YOU THINK THEYRE STILL MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY 12? No! People age! It’s like saying a 20 year old being sexual is inappropriate because they were once 12!
Thank you for making this, ever since I turned 18 it's been a wild ride of shaming and self-hate for even THINKING of aging up a character to match my age. I got bashed for making fan art for a characters '18'th birthday- which was just them smiling. This weird age of pureitising (hope I spelt that right) and shaming is honestly exhausting, especially with the p//do accusations being thrown around (and taking away from ACTUAL p//do instances). Instead of bashing others for aging up a fictional character, we should be focusing on protecting actual real-life kids.
Thank you for sharing your perspective and insight, Mal!
I think I tend to fall on the side of being fine with aging up the vast majority of the time, though there are definitely things that cross the line for me. Maybe it's because I'm an older Gen Z, but I tend to take the perspective of "don't like, don't watch/read." It is absolutely fine for people to have different boundaries than me and I respect the hell out of that. You don't have to engage with work you don't vibe with. However, by and large I don't think it's the place of other people to play the part of the morality police or crucify people for how they engage with content.
I know they're a lot of work, but I really enjoy your long videos! They give me something nice to listen to and think about while I draw.
In my opinion, it's absolutely fine to age up any character, whether out of curiosity or to sexualize them. People seem to forget that there's a big distinction between reality and fiction and sexualizing an aged up character doesn't mean someone will go after minors irl, or that they're attracted to minors at all. The issue with minors in real life having relationships with older people to begin with is the power imbalance between the teen and their much more mature partner who could very easily take advantage of/abuse them, but there's no power imbalance between a fictional character who does NOT look like a child in any way and an artist/viewer who wants to sexualize them. I feel the same way about teenage characters who look old enough to pass as adults; sexualizing a fictional character who acts, looks and sounds like an adult doesn't necessarily make you a predator :p
As a 22 year old its a weird limbo of not being young enough to have crushes on any character, but also not also not old enough to justify making a whole AU
remember guys: these are fictional characters. we should be focusing on real life kids who were ACTUALLY assaulted and traumatized by such events. because at the end of the day, these are just pixel drawn characters who don't exist.
Yeah people don't understand what's important to care about
People can focus on both. I know crazy right? This argument doesn’t have a lot of weight when you realize that everyone can have a certain amount of time to discuss something. I literally do both, I’m allowed to think about a issue
Tbh I'd RATHER someone age a character up to sexualize them rather than sexualizing a character that's a literal child
I see this all the time! Like there was this artist that drew the PPG girls as strippers, but they were very clearly adult versions and still the artist got harassed with pedo accusations and 'that just doesn't feel right'. The outfits weren't even skimpy they literally just had adult bodies with adult body suits that only showed off their thighs and arms. Fandom is getting more and more ridiculous and I for one am sick of it.
Me who has a crush on fictional adults as a minor: I am 4 parallel universes ahead of you.
I used to be, now im an adult so yeah, legal ig? XD
This topic makes me feel so… scared and confused. Because for a while after I turned 18 back in 2020, I genuinely felt like I was a creep just for liking Hitoshi Shinso from BNHA. It literally got to the point where I thought that I was an actual P3/d0. Not making that up.
There were times where I couldn’t clear my mind without thinking about crying because i thought that I was a creep. Hell. I hated the idea of going outside for fresh air, to check the mail, or just go to the store. Because of the thought that I could be a dangerous person to kids.
But deep down I *know for a fact* that I would never in a million years, hurt a minor. And to be completely honest with you. I’ve been to public schools that really did terrify me because the teens and kids acted very unsettlingly inappropriate. There were stories/ rumors in high school about students doing s3/xu@l acts on school grounds.
And even before I was in high school. Back when I was in the 7th grade (I was 12). One day while I was on the bus rides to and from school, the little boy sitting next to me who was far younger than me. Most likely in kindergarten or first grade. S3x/u@ly assaulted me. When I got home I immediately told my mom about it. Who in turn, contacted the police. After the police were done investigating my mom asked what they did to the kid and his parents. But they didn’t give her a straight answer. They just told her “it’s classified information.” Which leads me to think that those parents did something to him.
I mention all of that because, most predatory people have had someone assault or harass them in that way. Which is exactly why I’m scared that I might be or turn into that type of person. I’m more scared of kids and teenagers because of high school and what happened to me directly. But I still fear that i’m no better than actual p3/d0s just because I ever liked anime characters that just so happened to be minors.
I know that I probably sound crazy. And that others probably won’t believe me. But I just had to get this off of my chest.
This whole situation with whether or not it’s okay to age up characters. Especially for explicit content, or even just innocent (legal) ships. Has messed me up internally ever since the pandemic. It’s gotten so bad to the point that I’ve stopped uploading videos on this particular UA-cam account. Which for context, I started back when I was 17. Just a month or so before I turned 18.
I’m constantly debating on whether I should get rid of all of the videos on my channel. Or if I should just leave them there and start a new channel.
I feel semi guilty for just dropping the channel and not making any content for the literal 2000+ people who subscribed to me. Of course I wouldn’t upload anymore explicit content on here, but at the same time I know that’s what most of my subscribers want. So it’s just kind of hopeless to try to keep my viewers happy without it. Which sucks.
With all that being said. The main thing that I want people to take away from this is: *DO NOT* go around calling people p3/d0philic. It might not be illegal to do so. But it does leave deep mental scars on people to be accused of a vile and disgusting crime. I haven’t ever even been accused of that and it still hurts. So please. Don’t always assume that having crushes on fictional minors automatically means that someone is a criminal.
While fiction does affect real world people. It doesn’t always do that. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. And even then so. Different people interpret fiction differently. It's rarely ever the exact same. So you can’t always judge people based solely off of the fact that they like a fictional character and age them up. There’s more to a person than that. There are multiple aspects of a situation, pieces of context that are needed, and above all, a real person on the other side of the screen. And at that, a person that you don't completely know.
Hey, I agree with most of what you've said, and I'm a little bit late, but...have you perhaps heard of OCD? Because I suffered from something similar, almost to a life-threatening degree, and I was diagnosed with OCD because of it. Look up POCD in specific. I'm not saying you DO have it, I'm just saying it would've helped a lot if I knew for certain what it was back then.
There's a lot to unpack with a topic like this. I hope the comment section stays civil.
I would hope so too :T
I have actually seen a way the " 2,000 year old child" can be fixed: you just have to give them a reason to be in child form a lot,, but prove that they are adults by giving them an adult form that they go into every so often. Maybe introduce them in adult form too, also. ( if you've played ayakashi romance reborn, you know i got that idea from yura and gaku, ...although they kinda only
introduce the adult forms later on in dawn chapter)
Like that one character from Bleach..idk her name but she has green hair and a child form.
Neat! I hadn't really thought of it like that before.
I can think of one example. Washu Hakubi from the Tenchi Muyo OVAs. She looks like she's 12, but that's because she's used her tech to keep her body like that. Back in the past and when she was in her adult form, she had a romance with a guy. She had a kid and... his upper class family took the baby away because they did not approve of her and her lower class status.
She decided to stay in her child form as an act of rebellion against adult rules and to never have to deal with adult issues ever again. She still can turn into an adult, but more of a gag for the most part.
I actually have a charcater like this! She's really old but uses a more child like appearance to get people to not yell at her when in reality she looks like an old edritchen being when not using this form
@@Jynxxx5 nel I was also about to mention her but I see you beat me to the punch by a yeari love her she's adorable in her child form and an absolute badass in her adult form I hope you see this comment and can't wait to see her again in action in her adult form in the thousand year blood war anime of bleach no spoilers please if you're watching part 2 of it
Kid here! (15)
I think that aging up characters is only messed up if it's specifically for sexualizing said character. It's the difference between aging up characters in, say, Miraculous Ladybug to write smut, and something more like "Back to Us" where the protagonists are aged up by 7 years, and the narrative focuses on how things have changed as they have entered adulthood. There are technically sexual content but it isn't the focus of the fic.
I feel like aging up characters should be treated on a case by case basis.
Regardless of the morality of aging characters up, I don't think people should be crucified for doing that on the internet if it's clear that said characters *are* adults. Honestly, just avoid aged up content if it makes you uncomfortable, because engaging it will just bring you more of said content.
I personally don't appreciate a lot of instances of aging up, for example, Yandere Dev setting characters in high school and then being like "lol btw they're all 18."
All I'll say is that I encourage artists and writers to emphasize their adulthood to avoid falling into bait-and-switch territory. If you don't wanna, then ok whatever that's your business--
EDIT: BHHFJDKDKSKS YEAH U MENTIONED YANDEV
Agreed. I have no qualms when aging up is done with the purpose of exploring adulthood. That is at least transformative. It's not even that I think there's anything wrong with people enjoying sexual things, I just get tired of folks projecting eroticism onto _everything_. There are literally so many works of fictions about adults that they could get their fix with but they choose to age up under-aged characters. It especially bothers me when people do this with children's media characters.
For me, it all depends on context. For example, they're being aged up for a Next-Gen fic because they were a child in the canon. Alright, that's okay as long as it isn't mostly for the next context: Aging them up solely to sexualize them. A good example of this is Eri from My Hero Academia, in the canon she's six years old, but even just googling her names brings up some...results, to put it simply.
*i also found a body pillow of a non-aged up Eri while googling this stuff and I ain't religious but even I had to go to a fucking priest after seeing some of this shit*
Me upon hearing there's a body pillow of a 6 year old out there: ua-cam.com/video/eixJOq-C78M/v-deo.html
If you're familiar with the Erin Clover drama I can't be the only one who finds it very off that people are targeting Erin Clover in particular for the sexualisation of minors even though there's loads of people who have been guilty of doing so in the MHA fandom. While I think Erin has her faults I feel the cancellation of her is a bit weird.
It's not just MHA but literally entire websites such as pixiv and nhtai. People have been doing this for years and it baffles me that people are targeting this random singular person for doing the same thing
@@Evieegotlost yeah pretty much
Exacly, one motive that never made me think about "aging up characters is bad" is because, since I started surfing on the internet in my early 11 years this stuff already existed. Like, I remember searching about naruto with my brother on google images and scrolling down and down, he ( who was older) found a NSWF YAOI fanart from the boys, he didn't let me see it ( he teased and joked about it) but I ALREDY HAD the knowledge that existed, and I tried to avoid it until I got the age to be interested in it( which was 17 for smut fanfic and 18 for any h*ntai/josei sm*t stories). And now, in pinterest what you more see is fanarts from shounens boys, in all types of situations and poses. People are doing this for ages, why just now that we are having these witch hunts? Quarantine seems to havw affected people in more than one way.
I know this was a year ago, but the thing with the Erin Clover drama is that after it, people really did stop fking with others who aged up characters for sexual reasons. Even outside of MHa, Erin just brought it to light. Aging up definitely existed before, just new people were shown to it and thought about it for a bit.
Im so confused on why drawing characters as adults is always so wrong. Like...
And What really bothers me is even when a character is an adult people will just dance around that and be like "MINOR CODED MINOR CODED" because the very clearly adult character looks a bit girly or is short.
FFS, being mentally young isn’t the same as being physically young. It feels so stupid having a childish adult character be completely off limits for NSFW. I get the whole staying in character thing but let others treat them how they want.
I have two ocs I ship with tmnt characters, they are just friends during their teen years but after 7 years or whatever when they are adults they after hardship become couples. I aged them up because I wanted too, I thought it would have more depth and character progression to do so, so the argument of “you adults only age them up to nsfw them.” Doesn’t hold up. It honestly makes me uncomfortable since am aroace and tend to make my characters ace cause it would cause discomfort. Even if they weren’t ace it would be horrible to assume that is why people age them up. I have seen people be like “age them up.” Then say “you shouldn’t age them up your horrible!” It’s like they look for reasons to start something.
"I have two ocs I ship with tmnt characters"
No need to say more, you have my respect.
I'd rather would like to see an aged up version of a character in NSFW content than a minor.
My take is that ageing child characters up JUST to make NSFW of them is a little strange, but not illegal. Honestly I prefer to age the characters up for an AU that takes place like a few years after the movie/show/comic happened. I mostly find it weird if you’re ageing up kids under 16 for NSFW.
As someone who’s 17 I’ll chip in my 2 cents
It really depends on what reason. If you’re making an older/future au than it’s fine but if you’re doing it solely for sexualization and nsfw ( even if you make them look distinctly adult it’s still a bit sketchy )
I do disagree with you mentioning people not caring about the source material sexualizing minors bc as someone who was in the danganronpa fandom ( and ig is still into danganronpa?? Idk ) people definitely call out the sexualization of the characters and sometimes redesign them. I’m not sure if it’s present in other fandoms ( I do think some people call out some of the choices made in mha regarding certain characters )
just wanna correct you on one part - unless its specifically about the warriors of hope, no danganronpa character is actually a minor, especially by the time the entire DR1-SDR2-DR3 saga is wrapped up.
what abt v3? their ages are v vague
@@cosmic_heartz6480 v3 ages are then up to interpretation, since none of them have canon ages. you cant really confirm or deny if any of them are minors
@@yonaga-san4311 They’re unconfirmed, but definitely implied, as they a,l call themselves high schoolers and are seen wearing school uniforms in the beginning, where presumably, that’s their ‘real’ selves.
@@fozzieland implications arent enough to be confirmation tho. its really up to interpretation
I honestly created a character to poke fun at the "oH sHe'S AcTuAlY 100 yEaRs OlD" trope and created a tomato man that has been alive to 2 years and has the mind and body of a 26 year old. He would of been over a hundred, if he wasn't given an anti aging formula when being created (cause the first had died of old age with in 3 weeks). I've even added a love interest that will help the tomato grow as a character.
TLDR: I make tomato man to make fun of creeps that prey on bs 100 year old children.
this seems so oddly interesting
I know this was like, the most brief thing you said in the video, but THANK YOU for pointing out that just because you personally don't like something, doesn't mean it's problematic! A lot of people seem to have the mindset that if something makes *them* uncomfortable, they have to find a reason for it to be *universally* uncomfortable and wrong. I think this comes from both feeling like your dislike of something is invalid if there isn't *actually* something morally wrong about it.
For example, I think it's pretty darn weird to be attracted to fictional characters. It's odd that people can be attracted to cartoons and drawings that don't even resemble real-life people. But you don't see me going around calling it zoophilia or something to find a fictional character attractive. Just because *I* don't like it doesn't mean it's *objectively bad.*
I also wanted to add that almost ANYTHING can be interpreted as problematic if you think about it too much. This does NOT apply to everything, but in some cases, people need to take a step back and realize that *it isn't that deep.* Now, I don't mean that just because something is fictional no use of it can be harmful, but I'm saying that there are many cases where people are getting super worked up over something that it's clear they just over-interpreted. Please, before attacking people impulsively, take a step back, think about how you got to the conclusion you did, and ask yourself if it's actually rational.
I love that JoJos meme where someone erased all the unnecessary lines and crosshatching and stuff from a picture of Jotaro and the only comments were "HOLY SHIT! THERE'S AN ACTUAL 16 YEAR OLD UNDER ALL THOSE LINES!" Like ya, Jotaro looked at least 21 in that art style, can't base age off of art style.
I'm a crime buff and have seen the horrific parts of reality to the point that I will delve into fantasy any chance that I get. When aging up comes into play, I tend to ignore it because I don't care enough to remind these people that unless it crosses into reality, nothing can be done about it. Even then, I have a hard time believing in people who try using fantasy as their reason for doing something, especially when they are found competent enough to stand trial for what they've done. And yes, that excuse has been used as a defense in several murder cases.
I don't have a problem with aging up. I have a problem with people wishing and threatening real world violence on people over fantasy.
If you don't like aging up, avoid it. Don't sit there and pretend you have the moral high ground over fiction. Your morality should be focused on real world problems, not if some artist drew a character aged up. And the fact that pedophilia is slapped on anything that has to do with a minor shows that those whining have no clue what they are talking about.
There was an incident months ago where some underage kid tried to justify using the word incorrectly by stating their own abuse when it came to anyone who aged up at the child. I had to remind them that they were the victim of a predator, not someone who aged up kids since those who aged up kids were not interested in children as they were. The only reason I even intervened was because they were painting any and all adults in fandoms as pedos and they were getting quite the following over it. It was quite insulting.
‘Guess what buttercup’ was that a powerpuff girls reference? 👀
(ps ilu and am super proud that you always make videos on what you think could create good discussion even if it can be seen as a spicy take, i really like hearing your thoughts on these kinds of things and i know i’m not alone 💖)
I wish all these types of videos started with a “yes” or “no” so I could know what I was getting myself into LMAOOOOO
Mali: [This video]
Noralities: [Steps out of the shadows] Have you heard of the Egalitarian initiative?
[Roll main credits]
What does noralities have to do with this?
Also Barbara out here making you sound smart and thats the real tea
I made a baby OC that at first wasn't suppose to be a baby at all, after like 2 years or so I decided to age her up to a kid. It fun because as I grow up so does the character.
Also as a Asexual I don't ever plan or want to think of this OC in anything....."Weird"
Backwards hand baby Bubbles is the real problematic thing we should be talking about. That means you're CANCLED BECAUSE LOOK AT THAT RIGHT THERE, IT'S ALL OVER THE SCREEN. YOU CAN'T EDITED IT TO BE CORRECT HALF WAY THROUGH AND PRETEND WE DIDN'T NOTICE. (This is joke, I must add that because this is the internet.)
I think it's a very muddy conversation, If someone is "aging up" a character without any changes or aspects of the design to make it clear they're older purely for the purpose to put them in sexual or violent situations and excusing it by slapping an "Aged Up!" sticker on it, even though they've drawn them exactly how they are in the show.
E.G. there's a character from an anime I'm insterested in who is 12 years old, couple months back I was checking out the explore page on instagram, lo and behold, a post of NSFW artwork of this character shows up (As a vague description, The character had been drawn wearing skimpy lingerie in a overtly sexual pose). the caption said "Aged Up! she's 18!" when they had still drawn her body as child-like and her facial features were still that of a 12 yr old, she looked exactly the same as her design within the show except drawn provocatively. I think in situations like *those* aging up characters is wrong.
This reminds me when my younger friends tried to demonize their substitute teacher for having Sailor Moon on his laptop background. I had to remind them how old Sailor Moon's media is and that he probably grew up watching it the same way I did.
Technically, if the character is between 15-17. Aging them up to be between 18-23. You don't drastically change that much. Maybe you have phases where your physical appearance may change, but personality-wise...Not really.
You don't start changing personality-wise until your around your mid 20's and then on.
Again, once the character has been aged up. They are no longer a minor. Period. Sorry not sorry but this is fact. If you cannot tell otherwise, maybe you should question your own morals, rather than throwing a serious claim around like Pedophilia or Grooming, *to a bunch of pixels*
If your so easily triggered by fiction, that is a YOU problem. Not the content creator that can very clearly separate their content they consume, with their sense of reality.
You guys can argue amongst yourselves underneath my post. I'm not gonna argue with a bunch of idiots that think fiction is *Eaxtly. The. Same.* as reality. When it's very clearly, not.
Plz no argue. Only discuss. ;~;
For real tho, be kind to each other in the comments when debating these things. At the end of the day we're just talking opinions on fiction here. So ya know, find a chill vibe for it. ✌
Although on that note I do think it's interesting when people talk about fiction being the same as reality.
I haven't personally come across someone with that exact view before but the sentiment of 'art reflects reality' and 'media influences behaviour' is pretty common and I find those concepts pretty cool to mull over.
So far I've only been offered arguments along the lines of media influences the youth and while not completely without merit I haven't yet heard an argument that had me thinking certain topics or themes should be taboo. Still down to hear any opinions about it tho.
Anyways, happy comment scrolling.
@@MaliMalware I only said arguing bc I know how people tend to have a Knee-jerk reaction to reply with a hate-comment simply bc I support this kind of aging up lmao.
I personally think that if you cannot separate fiction from reality, you need mental help/a better coping mechanism.
If everything fictional was real, we'd be a destroyed planet with the amount of fictional bad guy's that wanna destroy it lmao...
I'm glad I found this in my recommended section! I was actually really curious about this, and wasn't sure how to go about it. Having recently reached adulthood myself, I realized that some of my favourite characters are a little on the younger side and would be problematic to write about in some contexts. I considered aging them up, to be more fit with my age and easier to write about. Even so, despite all that, I feel like I haven't aged a day past 14. Regardless, I still try to be ethical in any way I can
I have an AU where the minor character is aged up to his 20s, and he's clearly drawn as older, but I can see how people would have a problem with that.
i know it isn’t illegal to draw someone aged up just to draw them in inappropriate situations, but it’s still really gross and weird to me, like as a minor, if someone aged up one of my ocs i would be really grossed out..though i understand your points
Thank you for making this video! While there are parts I disagree with (I feel it's fairly natural to slowly have feeling die for a character who is younger than you because of the disconnect between an adult and youth life, especially if the aged up version keeps them in high school) I find myself agreeing with a lot of your other points.
This video was an eye opener and a very enjoyable watch.
Aw thanks! I'm glad you got something to chew on out of the video.
I do worry people feel they need to complete agree or disagree with these things. So it's good to hear you got something out of it while still disagreeing with the odd thing here and there. 🌟
Thanks for taking the time to take a listen to it.
Oh scooter noodle your actually here
Both myself and a friend had a sudden realisation when we turned 18 that we were no longer allowed to like things we had loved since being 12. My tastes from that time are literally the exact same as now, I’m still super into the same series and characters and I still find comfort in them for the same reasons as before. It was confusing but now I just accept what I like and don’t worry since I never even processed ages of those characters to begin with (anime characters aren’t exactly easy to tell the age of in the first place).
Yeah the real problem isn't aged-up characters
it's 1000-year-old lolis, harem light novel writers do better
Great video! One fandom which seems to be VERY loud about its characters ages and the art made of them, is 'Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'. The characters are, as the name of the show says, teenagers. And oh my, the fandom is very quick to make that exact statement each time they see any sort of mature content made of the main characters. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this fandom and the show/movie. But personally I have to say that many versions of the TMNT brand "suffer" from the tittle. I do not view the characters as teenagers, but they are written as such, much for the reason of the brand itself. Not viewing the characters as minors in the first place is of course NOT parafilic, but nowadays on the internet you will immediately get called a p€d. I see this as just hurtful behavior. In some situations calling people out in this way MAY be justified, but it shouldn't be an accusation just thrown around any time people see what they don't like. People need to just walk away in these situations.
Also sidenote, to some these accusations of being a p€d can be extremely hurtful. For example, people with ocd, compulsive and intrusive thoughts. You can very much send someone spiraling, so to everyone, just be mindful of what you are accusing people of. I'm not saying that mental health issues justify bad behavior, absolutely not. But it's good to acknowledge that people's minds work in different ways.
i so relate to the growing out of fictional characters bit, it was such a weird feeling turning 18 and 19 and realizing all the characters that are as old as or older than you that you had a crush on are suddenly considered minors and it was really uncomfortable and weird to think about because i myself didnt even feel atall like an adult yet and the characters i liked didnt atall feel like kids and yet thinking of them in any romantic or sexual way would be considered extremely bad. It is a weird thing to go through, time passes so fast
i partly disagree with the part after though. Minors can absolutely be pedophiles or groomers. if a 14 year old drew porn of 6 year old children, fictional or not, thats still messed up
see, i labored over this particular problem after aging out of the acceptable age bracket to still have a crush on death the kid from soul eater. i was 11 when i became obsessed with him, and felt bad for still thinking he was cute by the time i was 17-18. aging out of your fictional crush's age bracket as a child is crushing because it makes you wish they would just age with you!
This!!! I've had a crush on Kenny from South Park ever since I was around 9-10 (no clue why I was watching SP at that age). When I picture him, it's always him as my age (17) instead of him as a child (even thinking about Kenny as a child freaks me out and makes me panic).
I honestly find these hot takes so tiring. Especially cause most ppl ignore the same stuff that is actually handled horrible in canon as fine while passing heavy judgements for the same practices when done by fans.
Don‘t get me wrong. I do not enjoy the dragon maid bs at all. And any toddler or kid character written their age and sexualized is definitely unethical and probably illegal too so I‘m not gonna defend that. But what I am willing to defend is aging up if done right and AU‘s. There‘s a clear difference between a genuine age up and a fake one done only for law evasion when producing what essentially is CP. and I‘d call the genuine one the material that treats said characters as mature ones and makes that part of the characters person and behavior. A good age up always has maturity in it. Not to mention if it‘s sexual also that maturity plus comprehension of consent and stuff. All that would be present. And I‘d argue one could feel that sense of maturity when reading that kind of fanwork while the other extreme will also leave a reader with a strong sense of something being off. Mainly a character acting like a child. Wich is as far as i know the actual appeal for the more dodgy fans. If a character aged up acts and looks mature and experienced all of that appeal would logically pass so it‘d make no sense to demonize one for shipping that kind of character due to the clear adulthood present.
In general it does annoy me how black and white the thinking around this is for younger fans though and your point about them being hit with the same issue upon maturing is really true. You simply can‘t just drop all of your favorite media and especially that when you‘re neurodivergent and also have compfort characters. They grow up with you in your mind and revisiting shows may often make you see them in a different light. Just as an example, when i was 15 I was into Sasuke and Naruto when I was a fan. Now I‘m into Kakashi due to my own life experience as a 22 year old as well as me finding him more relatable due to his maturity. But that‘s also partially thanks to the genuine portrayal of these ages. I always felt like Naruto Characters acted their ages so that makes sense for me now. I couldn‘t consider Sasuke or Naruto hot anymore in their pre 20‘s state cause it‘s too immature for me. But beyond that is a different story. If only for Naruto. They changed him in Boruto and I like that Mature Naruto a lot more in fact. Again for the same reasons as Kakashi.
But then there‘s also shows like Jojo. And those shows write characters to be under 18 while looking and acting like 25 or 30. and this is where the problem arises I belive. People can‘t see that child abuse isn‘t just about the number. It‘s also about character behavior and looks. I can‘t for the life of me get into dating some harvest moon male characters cause they look like children wich puts me off despite them supposedly being adults, but I do see how someone could be into one of those Jojo dudes. They look nothing like a child would. Not in a single way. And neither do they act immature ebnough to read as children. If anything it might be a joke by the author since he doesn‘t seem to take himself too seriously either. So really why are we ignoring actual child abuse while calling out people who are attracted to clearly adult characters? I mean, isn‘t the point to call out people who are into children? You know, ones who look like and act like kids? Not grown men who look like 30 but claim to be 13?
That‘s what we should worry about. Not the stated ages in media since we clearly know as with Dragonmaid, how this is used to evade clear CP. and that‘s a real issue when the attraction actually is targeted towards toddlers visually and behaviorally. And when said thing is fetishized wich is common in Anime and Manga broadly. Let‘s not beat around the bush. Fandom can be creepy too. But there‘s more nuance than black and white thinking. And said nuance shouldn‘t be ignored for the sake of shutting everyone down and punishing the wrong people in the crossfire. Because after all media isn‘t there to play out perfectly and with no content that breaches any utopian fantasy rules. That‘s absurd and media will never restrict itself to that level and neither should it. There‘s still value in implying these horrid acts to teach us they are bad and why they are. If we didn‘t, we‘d just lie to ourselves about our reality. Same goes for any other horrible thing happening unjustly. We need to at least in some forms of media depict these things in a way that does educate and moralizes these things in appropriate ways. Otherwise media will just lose it‘s purpose. So really, if you wanna censor art to the point where nobody can engage with media with minors in it when they are grown ups, you‘ll just create a totalitarian relationship with art. Because in the end art is a creative outlet. It‘s leasure to endulge in it. And normally children, as in real children don‘t get harmed if a jojo character is shipped. So really if you are a minor yourself just look at all the stuff you like and picture it all gone into the bin once the clock hits 18. how much would be left for you? And do you think that restricting yourself from all minors in fiction, not reality is actually doing anything productive for you? Because I‘d argue if anything it‘d just limit you from consuming practically anything. Because believe it or not, most media has some minors in it, and that does also include romance in canon between said characters. And who wrote it? Most likely a adult author.
Took the words right out of my mouth.
it hits deep, when i was 13 i liked a ship between n (from pokemon) and one of the protagonits, and one of my favs pokemon creators asked in their story about their follower fav ships.
i enterd my ship and the creator called me out (my comment but without my name) called me gross and horibble and then blocked me. they are an adult and i was a child who simply liked a ship.
it really hurted my feelings, and i thought they really hate me personally , i understnd the whole "protect the children no bad ships" thing, but you literally hurted a child.
you didnt stopped a "pedo" you arent a "hero" you bullied a child cause of fictional ppl !!!!!!!
srry, its really somethig that botherd me.
My only issue is when people age up minors (e.x. lydia from beetlejuice) just so that they can ship them with an adult character
I'm glad to see someone finally alking about the whole growing older than the character you crush on thing. I've been too scared of terminally online teenagers calling me out to bring it up myself. It's also worth noting that cultural differences can make a major difference i how characters are perceived. For eg, high school in my country is very different to in places like Japan and the US, so characters in those settings always read as far older than they actually were (like high school was defined for me by the lack of freedom, meanwhile american tv shows would depict teens able to act with as much autonomy as an adult - this meant as a kid, and even as a young adult, I would see characters in these shows as older than me), especially since writers don't seem to understand how to write teenagers.
Talk at the start of the video made me instantly press "subscribe" button
This is something I've struggled with since I became an adult. I still have fictional crushes on characters who don't age, or don't have confirmed ages, and now im afraid to admit any of it for fear that people will throw out the pedo label, or I'll get cancelled or something. Im glad to see other people also feel this way. I don't think aging up characters should really matter, as long as you aren't aging up like a super young character just for sexual stuff. Fictional characters are just that, fiction. I think people on the internet take this stuff way too seriously. If people are bothered by it, I wish they would just not interact with it, instead of making callouts and all this anti stuff. I also think a lot of the people against aging up, are minors themselves, and they won't really understand the concept until they become adults either.
This is the best video I've seen about this topic. I find that other people who are arguing against aged up characters are so flimsy and just poorly defended. Also for the 18+ content, in the US at least, aging up characters is legal as long as they deviate from the character's actual age, but that's more for real life content as far as I know (It's been a while because I learned that through a Ponder Sprocket video, and I'm not a lawyer or very knowledgable about the law either) soooooo fictional characters really don't count because shocker! They aren't real. And I think it's funny that a certain video had to point out that 18 year olds can be in highschool and like lambasting an artist for drawing 18+ content of an aged up character who was LITERALLY 18 IN HIGHSCHOOL!
I was honestly keeping my hands off the topic after seeing people arguing over and over again.
But this video definitely helped me collect my own thoughts and examples. I finally know what to say and I thank you for it. ^^
In my opinion aging up characters isn’t wrong if it’s for like a AU or a video about what they think will happen in the future when they’re adults. But when it’s for shipping, like for some ships I’ve seen it’s a minor x adult and people have to age up a person just for the ship I find it wrong, if you have to age up a person just for a ship it shouldn’t be a ship.
Speaking of which, what exactly is the difference between "aging up characters" and "time skips"?
I mean, don't they work the same way?
I’ve actually accidentally aged up characters when I was a child 🥲
there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever
If you look at a character and you get the idea to age them up for a sexual fan art/writing, you are attracted to that character already before aging them up. The idea came from somewhere and that somewhere is attraction.
I know this video is already two years old but I want to say thank you so much for bringing it out there, I'm so glad someone expressed their thoughts I relate to, so much better than I did so far on the topic.
The fact that we can cringe or feel regret for what we have done in the past, proves that we have grown.
Ah yes, if I hadn't written the poorly disguised anime-plagiarized, self-insert stories in my grade school and high school days, I dunno where I'd be. I learned a lot from writing them, and I still have the original manuscripts to remind myself that we all had to start somewhere.
This made my cry...
Btw the video was amazing and covered so many good points.
It depends. This isn't right if your only goal is to pair them with an adult or make them do something that wouldn't be acceptable in their original age group. Otherwise, nothing to worry about.
Look, as a minor, I'll give my VERY honest opinion. I don't care if you age them up. It's pretty much the best option you have. Not because you don't want to be called a p*do, but because you feel uncomfortable writing a minor doing something 18+.
I know, it sounds weird since I'm putting my opinion into this (because I can't read 18+ stuff), but really, I don't see the problem. And really? I'm actually scared of growing up because I don't want to be called a p*do for liking a character I have always liked since my teen years, BECAUSE THEY NEVER AGE.
I feel worried that I'll have to give up characters I like because of the fact that I will get older, and they won't. So age them up. It doesn't mean that you fantasise about a fictional character as a minor and wrote them as an adult because you don't want to get bashed. If that's the case, then I'll REALLY feel uncomfy.
I really wish people would stick to "Don't like, don't read". I won't hate you or anything for not feeling comfortable reading anything with an aged up character. It depends on you. Just don't go harassing people and throwing around a term that is used to depict adults who literally r*pe and gr*om minors IRL, because that does harm real people.
And anyways, most fanfictions I've read don't only age them up solely for 18+ stuff. It can also be for drinking, driving, etc. Or because they thought that whatever scenario they would put the character in felt more like something an adult would do, and not a teenager (or maybe because they just felt like it).
I'm so sorry for such a long ass reply, but I'm just frustrated with the number of people bashing others for writing or drawing content that they could easily avoid. No one's forcing you to consume the content. It's very easy to change their age, because at the end of the day, they were MADE to be teenagers by whoever made the characters. They were produced by a thought. If it's easy to age them down for flashbacks when they were kids, why can't you age them up? (Anyways I'll take my leave I've talked long enough)
And if anyone does reply, please don't fight, this is just my opinion
I don't think aging up characters is problematic. What I find disturbing is that they age minors to ship them with adults. The perfect exemple is Frans (from Undertale) Frisk is a child. The game mentions it, even the avatar is showing it. Sans is an adult. They age Frisk up to ship them with Sans. That's disturbing.
I totally agree! I get the whole idea that Sans is undead, hence he can't die of age, but it's still weird to ship a human with a skeleton even if they fix the problem with Frisk being underage.
Another kind of aged up that I think could also be addressed (in the segment where you bring up where aging up doesn't work) is aging up an underage character, but they're still underaged, like, for example, aging up a 6-year-old character to be 16, or aging up a 13-year-old character to be 17, or aging up an 8-year-old character to be 12, or even aging up a 16-year-old character to be 17. This doesn't seem as common though, and I've never seen any instances of it happening, but I also don't think it's out of the realm of possibility, nor do I believe that it's never been done before. And, yeah, if you're sexualizing an aged up character, but the character is still at an underaged age, then that's pretty bad. (Unless it's a minor doing this to make the character either the same age as them or close to them in age, then that's different.)
Could you possibly make a video of Oc/ self insert x canon characters problematic video?
you make a ton of good points in this video and now it makes me feel better for aging up my own characters so he has a child
Tbh, in my opinion
Aging up characters are always okay =-=
As long as the intentions of aging up the characters is not for sexual needs, it should be okay👍
Honestly, I think it all comes down to your reasoning. If you're aging characters up solely for the purpose of sexualizing them- its kinda iffy
But, if it's a fictional show and something like- lets say South Park. Since South Park is an adult show though all of the main characters are 4th graders, I'd say aging them up in your fanworks and art is perfectly fine.
But if it's a genuine kids show like Octonauts or something similar then I don't think you should be doing that, y'see where I'm coming from?
Here’s my opinion on ageing up characters before really watching the video. Intention is what defines if it’s problematic or harmless. Problematic intentions tend to be things like ageing kid characters up so they’re able to pair them up with characters who are already adults and the sole purpose of sexualising them so you can get your rocks off. This is strictly characters who are children though. Neither of these things should be an issue if the character isn’t a minor anymore. The only time I can see the sexualisation of a character who’s in their late teens is if that’s meant to show they rely on this sexualisation of themselves for financial reasons, social reasons or even romantic relationship reasons, although that’s not the sexualisation of a character solely so they’re sexually appealing, it’s using the sexualisation of that character to show a serious problem in their life they’re going through.
Thoughts may change after watching the video.
A very peculiar topic to talk about, and I agree that these sort of things are more case by case. They're character that people are going to like that are portraited as minors (or look like minors but are ancient beings. Tomato.. tomatoe ), alot of it is unescapable due to the story/setting and how the creator envisions their story, which most of the time the characters are minors. And those creators are adults, the content is worked on by teams of adults, the panty shot and/or revealing shot in some of those shows (lets not forget animated) are done by adults.
If those that are in such an uproar over aged up characters, then they should be going after the source material as well if they feel so strongly against it. It's just bizarre to me this is over fictional characters, if we are following said logic then why wasn't their any bloody uproar over twilight fandom spin off? That was a fanfic and they aged up the main character, and that chaos of a fic got turned into a 3 movie series.
My personal gripe from this entire debatable topic is how very little people honestly are willing to debate as a whole because, instead of having honest meaningful discussions/discourse, instead we get constant people standing on a "moral high ground" as well constant misidentification when it comes to what is the meaning behind said art and just go to instant which trials, and that is honestly what I have been seeing here while these people are technically no better by their own logic and if they are honestly here for a discussion they would've easily realized what they're doing is mislabeling at best and it's slanderous at worst.
Seeing these people in action, as much as I like to believe they are simply misguided and just don't know any better, I am not very smart myself, hell I'm not even an artist. So it bothers me that topics like this I know what kinds of categories should I list to see what is valid and what isn't, at the age of 17. So arguably these people should've learned the differences at this point and them only sticking to their ignorance is an excuse not an honest reason why they don't know this.
My take for why this might be the case is that people around my age and younger are terminally online for so long for months if not years on end, they latch on these ideas and never bothered challenging said ideas and stick with it. Similar situation have happened like for the longest time people assume Lion King ripped off Kimba the white lion, even though nothing what they say adds up when you the full context of the situation, but since most people were in a mob mentality they never honestly asked themselves the basic of questions. So the fact a situation like this exist. Tells me the majority of people never bother challenged themselves this on this topic alone.
ok but we can all agree that the adult live action versions of stuff like riverdale and the power puff girls was a dumpster fire idea lol
Oops, I made a dumb comment about the art without seeing the rest of the video. Now, I'm going to instead say that I love the art, and it's adorable! (If curious, I was like, "The thumb's on the wrong side of the hand" when it changed, lol)
So glad to see a video like this! I remember back when I was growing up, I would compare my age to different characters like certain checkpoints. y'know like "I'm finally the same age as the Ninja Turtles! :D" but that only lasts so long and eventually you will be an adult. There are two main problems. One, as mentioned in the video, no one should be expected to just stop passionately loving a character once they hit 18.
Two, another thing that I think is important to address is that most content that is popularly consumed in these spaces have main casts almost entirely made up of minors. whether this is preteens or teens, coming of age stories are one of the most popular kinds of stories. So odds are unless I'm watching content that is explicitly geared towards adults, my choices of adult characters to get attached to are going to be VERY small. And saying that someone isn't allowed to feel a connection with the vast majority of the cast is just gatekeeping the whole thing. I personally am not extremely attached to any of the main cast in MHA in that way, but I could 100% see how a young adult might get attached and want to selfship with Deku after adjusting the ages or something.
I'm a big Shun x Seiya fan, basically while in the main series both are 13 years old. In omega they are in their late 30s.
Now I write them as adults, Shun wants to be a doctor so I give him that profession. Also I'm fine with sexualisation if it's obvious they are adults.
same
i like making characters old cuz as i get older i wanna see the characters i grew up with get older
I was thinking about this debate a week ago, when I was drawing my own "aged-up" versions of the PPG.
The show ages them up in an episode, with a timeskip, so I especially dont see much issue with reimagining their personalities - they were painfully copy-paste cringy 😅.
I think, when we like characters as children, the characters grow up with us in our minds - subconsciously - especially if we resonate with them in any way.
In my opinion: I think aging up characters for an au like for example aging up Eri(from bnha) to be a prohero, or aging up Peter Parker to his late 30s and having a happy family, is fine as long it isn't werid or gross.
honestly i hate it when people age up characters just to make nsfw of them. and only that nothing else that just kinda weird imo.
I like Ace in his Gorillaz look. Does that make him a aged up cannon character connection to the powerpuff girls?
Mali: "i personally cannot stand those filthy filthy things you call watermelons"
Me:AYYYYYYYY!! same
Something that's bothered me with this topic a lot lately is in one of my newest fandoms, Little Nightmares. On one hand, you have the protagonists who are all children, around 9 years old as far as I'm aware. Then you have the fan work and aus that can be anything between slight changes to canon, high school aus, aus where they may be adults (example, mafia-esque aus are fairly common from my experience).
Yet (spoilers for the second game):
I have seen people posting puppy crush art of the kids who get called creeps, while people making art of them making out or is slightly suggestive expressions and poses who just get praise or likes and nothing. Then, two grown adults have even more problems apparently. The Thin Man/The Lady is a popular ship of two FULLY GROWN ADULTS who I've seen artists and shippers of them get called pedophiliac because:
1. "They're just aged up from the children"
One of them is canonically a grown adult of one of the kids, but he's very obviously an adult and different. The other one is an adult who has no confirmed connection like this other than fan theories, and a lot of the shippers like that theory of her being the older version of the other child. Again, this isn't even fan aging up, this is canon ages.
2. "She's like 20s and he's 60s"
They don't have confirmed ages anywhere I've seen besides being very obviously old, and even if you chose 20s and 60s from their designs those are still grown adults and not pedophiliac.
Can people stop throwing that word around like it's a playground insult? Be upset at the suggestive art of 9 year olds, not the puppy crushes, wholesome, or canon adult fanart.
What if you age yourself, if its a self insert, or your character down to around the age the character you/they like? Thats my question.
I have yet to ask a therapist about it but I plan to, as aging down self inserts is something I'd like to do as well, partly because I'd like to reclaim my childhood a little and partly because I have some ideas for an interesting (imo) story
Imo, it really depends. Aging up a character for normal reasons like just wanting to draw them grown up is ok. But aging them up just to sexualize them is weird.
PLEEAAAASEEEE GO OFF nobody could describe it better. pls u did it perfectly PROPS
I personally only find a issue if the character is extremely young such as eri in mha, but other characters that are 16 older I don't mind at all, especially because in the UK (where I am) 16 is the legal age of consent
Thank you for this. As someone who was into a particular ship during my teens, I used to create art, write and rp this stuff. But I forcibly stopped my self from creating this stuff. Long story short. I discovered that my own dad (Who at that point I hadnt seen since i was 3)was a p🐻do when I 16. It was really hard to disconnect myself from him, and when I reflected on my interests, my art and seeing comments all over tiktok and pinterest that I was a p🐻do because I aged up particular character. This fear has been eating and eating at me. Not only did I emotionally loose my dad who I had spent my entire childhood looking for, I also ended up abandoning one of my own only forms of coping mechanisms at the time.
It seemed for a while there that it was only getting worse and worse
The only problem I have with aging up characters is if they don't change the design at all.
Sure, if the character is 16, I don't expect anyone to change it too much. BUT if you take a 10yo character and barely change the design then defend it with "I aged them up, it's just my style" I cannot endorse that.
Yeah that really annoys me, they just add a few accessories and that's it
Me at 15/16: simps for 17 year old character.
Me at 18: *ages characters up to 18*
Me literally still in high school...
I don't see a problem with this.
But if a 30 year old man ages up like a 9-year-old to a 19-year old that's kinda sus.
As others have said it's a case-by-case thing.
It's so noticeable when fan fiction writers only age up a character in a smut to cater to the readers. It's even more annoying because the character will still have the same qualities they had when they were a minor, it's like when 2 kids dress up as a tall man in movies. It would be better if the writers made them more adult-like but they think being an adult is only knowing where y/n's sweet spot is. They water down the character to be an adult with a high sex drive which is awful when the character is actually nothing like that and also takes away the personality from the character which made so many people like them in the first place. It's as if the writers only liked the character for their looks so they don't mind if they change the character's personality. This is also my issue with "fanon characters" but I won't get into that.
The thing that I always say is to try to understand the intent of the art. I've been writing a fic that is kind of a coping mechanism bc Steven Universe is a character I look at and go "Yeah. That's me." He was a minor up until the end of the series, but had clearly aged. He is clearly a vector to talk about the struggles of aging and growing. And I want to use him as a vector for some of My experiences, but some of them are So Dark that I feel scared to depict in a fandom full of teenage minors that have been watching since they were tiny children. I could just write to write it for myself, but I get no enjoyment out of art if I can't show anybody.
Ngl this topic confuses me probably because im abit too young to understand but listening the part i do understand i kinda actually agree because it makes sense.