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 TH-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
Small correction in the YandereDev part tho. He didn't age them up because of the violence. People were complaining that you can take and sell panty shots from high school girls.... I had to double check this point
Which makes no sense. Ok, there _are_ schools in the world that end when you are 19, but that makes bo sense for Akademi High. Senpai is at least one year older than Ayano/Yandere-chan, who is in turn 2 grades higher than his sister, meaning that there is students _at least_ one year younger than Ayano to two years younger. If Akademi High's youngest student is possibly 18, that would make Ayano be in the 19 to 21 age gap and Senpai at least 22 and if there are students older than him they could be 23. However, the wiki says that Taro/Senpai is 18, so ayano would be 17 ans his sister 16/15. Making it that players can be taking panty shots of 15 to 18/19 year old girls.
@Henrrry_96 not too sure, since it’s been a while since I watched anything on this game, but I do remember there be an alternative for the panty shots system. Pretty sure it was something like finding out different gossip or something
@@sophasopha2357 Yeah and I feel like he got rid of the panty shots completely but I'm not sure about that, I know the majority of people use the other methods though Also I'm pretty sure the... actual panties are never on the screen anymore, the animation and actually taking the picture isn't there anymore afaik
@Henrrry_96 not elementary, the uniforms are usually worn by middle-school students _and_ high school students, but tbh he probably should've just changed the default uniforms to ones that already tell you "senior highschool" to avoid confusion, or even just make the entire thing take place during university or something.
I've always felt that aging up a character was definitely a case by case kinda thing but I've always been kinda afraid to share that same view with others. So seeing your video about the topic was definitely refreshing. Espialy since I've recently became friends with someone who likes to write an older version of Diona from Genshin Impact, purely because they don't like the idea of writing a child character they like serving and making drinks at a bar. With an understandable reason like that, it's a little sad to be afraid for them should they ever decide to post their headcanon's publicly due to the exact same hate that was described in the video. So I'll end by saying this, thanks for putting that different view on the topic more publicly out there, I'm sure there will definitely be people who appreciate it :3
your friend deff follows under the case by case thing, i think it’s absolutely fine in that way as they aren’t making a child into an adult for suggestive intentions but to make a story more comfortable!
Personally I find it fun to age up a character to make a design of them as an older version. I don’t sexualize them though... I ratioed the creators comment 😅
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.
Now if someone aged DOWN a character and had them do things they would be able to do as their canon adult age... Now THAT is wrong, especially if it's sexual.
@Pricey the Object Show Simp characters are aged down all the time for preschool/daycare aus or childhood friends. It's not very dubious honestly and actual creators of their own characters have done it just to see how they look.
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.)
If they're aged up and act/look like an adult, what's the problem? Fact is, we age and our favorite characters don't, so we make art/stories of "what if they finally grew up" and it's pretty cool/not problematic imo. Also, actual human relationships vs "fantasy" relationships are very different. Comparing reality to fantasy is silly, if you can't discern the difference between the two you shouldn't be involved with fantasy/the internet in general.
Here's the reason why I love it whenever my mom would blurted out "Aren't they just a fantasy/not real?" whenever I would tell her my current obsessions. Always remind me that they're not real and it is alright for me to think whatever I want with them, as long as I don't bring them to the real world. The only thing I can bring to my real life is whatever good lessons they can bring to us.
The MLP:FiM episode Growing Up is Hard to Do may or may not have touched up on this. Especially when it came to the fanart, where Sweetie Belle giving bedroom eyes was the focus of most of the episode's fanart. There are more pictures of that than of the characters who actually debuted in the episode combined.
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.
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 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”
IDK if anyone else has mentioned, but I'll comment anyway. I remember as a 15 year old, I watched a PBS documentary about Superheroes, and there was an old interview clip in it where Frank Miller said he wrote The Dark Knight Returns because he couldn't live with the fact that he became older than Batman, his childhood hero. So he wrote a comic about Batman in his 50s coming out of retirement. One of the most critically acclaimed comics of all time btw.
I love the points made in this video sm because honestly, internet spaces tend to ignore nuance and the fact that multiple things can be true at once. I was guilty of this a lot when I was younger, so it makes sense to me that a lot of the people making these absolutist claims about aging-up characters are pretty young. Like I'm sorry, but there's nothing problematic about reimagining a fictional character as a grown-ass adult taxpayer who also has sex. I completely understand the 'bait and switch' argument, cause I find that a bit concerning too, but acting as though all works which age up fictional minors are inherently wrong is just reductive and ignores the simple fact that people grow up. Also, it reminds me of that one onion article, "Obama canceled for marrying Michelle, former child."
For me it depends - cuz some shows do it too (Phineas and Ferb for example) as a way to show where these two's relationship would be if they were to grow up a bit. If it's a ship of two minors being aged up then I personally don't mind it. It's WAY more creepier when u age up a minor so you can ship them with an ADULT. Like this is actual shit that happens - an adult knows a minor ever since they were young, and waits a few good years just so they can hit on them. This usually involves grooming too. I'm not gonna call someone a groomer for doing it (I was groomed myself, I know the definition of that damned word) but I'd be genuinely uncomfortable and concerned for the person if they think this is... Normal behavior.
why would that be unpopular though? I'd only think if the issue was that it's an elderly couple and you're looking back at them being young adults and having a problem with that, could be weird, but yeah. Aging DOWN is weird as hell.
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.
I think so many young kids growing up with cancel culture (where they find out their favorite creator was a horrible predator) overthink these things because they're inexperienced and, well, traumatized. They learn a few words within a single context, and don't know how to use it, so they go overboard. They just need time.
Sometimes I just want to write Homura Akemi being an EMT and living with her cat in an apartment, she's been through a lot and showing her older and still going I feel is more symbolic and about overcoming the odds of the story's narrative. No sex about it, but if you change enough to make sure the character is indeed older then hey go buck wild. Keep it legal, go apeshit
As a MHA fan, it's really ironic and hilarious seeing ppl give Erin Clover shit for things that Horikoshi got criticized for, with these same fans defending him. Lmao At the end of the day, if your not creating CP, then while I got my grievances depending on the situation, I don't care and I'm sick in tired of ppl making callouts on these ppl instead of y'know, ppl who create actual CP and are actual child predators/pedophiles.
I think one of the issues people had with her was that she said they were aged up but still looked like they did as kids. Going as far as to draw them fucking in the school uniforms they ware as first years. But I can sti agree with your point that the fandoms have a really bad issue with caring more about fictional kids then real ones at times and its fucking sad.
@@fozzieland Personally even that is subjective. This is why people should private their accounts and put TW in their bios. I am a csa victim and I consumed that type of media in both my teens and in adulthood as a form of cope (I went to therapy as an adult too). I don't wish that on anyone nor do I want to do it to other people. I get that it's harmful for some victims but other victims still used it as a cope. I don't know about this Erin person and I cannot speak for everyone but I know other victims to write or draw their self inserts in these kinds of scenarios so they feel like they have control over a moment that they didn't in the past. I don't know if you'd call all people who engage in that content gross but it's kind of invalidating if so
The crush i had on Zuko as a kid was so powerful that I want him to age with me. Comfort character. When I was in high school, I read a lot of school stories with zuko in them, now I'm an adult, and I wanna see stuff about him being in college, or being a grown man. Most of the characters i like aged up were characters i had crushes on when I was 13, and now I want to see stories about them dealing with the shit I'm dealing with now!!
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.
Surprisingly, as someone approaching adulthood within the next four years, I've spent a lot of time not knowing how to feel. Even though I'm getting older, I can't suddenly remove those crushes I have and have had like clockwork. They developed in my youth and age had little to no influence on my crushes since they developed when I was younger or around the same age as the target character, but I've found myself feeling guilty and afraid of admitting that I still have some of them. It's a refresher to see someone with a similar view confirm that what I've experienced isn't unheard of and isn't wrong.
Don’t be letting anyone shame or chide you for being a kid with interests. You’ve not done anything wrong and have nothing to feel guilty about in enjoying characters designed to be enjoyed! Keep yourself safe online and try not to get too worried about what any of us (me included) are screaming about on here. 🌟
OH MY GOD FINALLY! SOMEONE Finally talked about this whole mess from an unbias perspective! I legitimately cried. I've had anxiety for the longest time now ever since the Erin Clover situation was brought up that hindered my drawing capability due to paranoia. I dunno how long this comment is going to be but I'm willing to go paragraph mode to express a lot of my own thoughts on this situation. First off, the frustration I have with certain TH-camrs that address this situation. It comes from an extremely bias perspective. As much as I don't wanna be mean, Streamline ESPECIALLY tackled this topic SO BAD. I don't know who started the Erin Clover situation but ohhh boy! It was a MESS and STILL IS! Her audience is mostly that of minors and when you encourage such a thought process of putting emotion over logic, someone's going to get hurt. I'm not saying Stream intended for anyone to get hurt. I know her videos were from a place of good faith. But her bias and personal experiences with someone disgusting have clouded her judgement causing the flip flop of discussing the topic. I am aware she isn't the only person whom touched this topic poorly and spitefully, but in my honest opinion so far being she is slightly more known, she kinda was the worse in regards to discussing this topic due to making 3 videos about it and completely confusing her audience's moralities. (Note: I'm NOT speaking about how she is as a person. I'm just talking about how poorly the topic was addressed) I'm not gonna say whether or not Erin was innocent of anything awful or questionable. But I will say anyone that brought this topic up and shared this mentality that if you age a character up for NSFW purpose means you are a disgraceful degenerate is extremely irresponsible and I honestly hope you look back on how terribly you did this and should apologize to your audience for the massive amounts of confusion you've caused them. I understand the desire to want people to do good, I really do. But demolishing people's rights to draw what they wish isn't gonna purify the world 100% Its as Mal said. SOMEONE is going to use ANY excuse to do bad things. If it's not fan art it's gonna be something else. The best you can do for online cases is be aware of who you're speaking to. NOT CALL THEM A PEEDBEAR JUST BECAUSE YOU FIND A CERTAIN PIECE OF FAN ART UNCOMFORTABLE! ANOTHER frustration I want to bring up is HOW ON EARTH did ANYONE get pass the 18+ wall on Erin's Patreon!? WHO paid to expose those drawings to these Commentary Channels and WHY are these channels showing these pieces and even STATING the location of where to FIND these pieces to their MINOR AUDIENCE!? *Breathes!* I'm sorry for my rage there but like, that was highly irresponsible on their part. Censored or not, you STILL revealed the location of where these artworks that were intended for a more mature audience can be found. It doesn't matter if they say they don't think the artist is a P-word. Because they've placed the mentality that these artworks should be deleted onto their minor audience, obviously their gonna feel like they need to do something about it because their "Trusted TH-camr" said so. Cutting that part short, I also wanna bring up the changing the characters physically thing. I think it's pretty dumb for people to harp on how "The characters don't look physically different" sure, if they were in their same height still then yeah, you have a point. But not everyone is going to look exaggeratingly different from when they were 15. If you reach the age of 20 then I suggest looking back on your 15 year old self and try to see if you can find a massively exaggerated difference. Your still gonna have certain aspects of yourself people will recognize you for, such as your nose, eyes or facial structures. And lets face facts here, not everyone likes facial hair. I'm sorry, this isn't to offend anyone whom likes or wants facial hair but if I'm being honest, I cannot see my childhood crush Joey Wheeler from Yu-Gi-Oh with facial hair or exaggerated wrinkles. Regardless if you are an adult or not you are still gonna keep aspects of yourself people will recognize you for. Heck, I sadly still look 15 despite being in my 20s and its SO ANNOYING when someone asks me what school I go to or don't take me seriously because of how I look. It's a curse and a blessing depending on the person. (I also hate my old classmates recognizing me and then patting me on the head.) What I'm basically saying is, it's gonna look jarring giving characters certain features. That's why for me personally, information of the character for this specific AU (Alternate Universe) is MORE of an importance than character design. Yeah, character design is still pretty important but it can be jarring for the artist. Therefore it's best to explain as well the background of said character and establish what your universe is. And now the most IMPORTANT part. As artists, they have DONE THEIR PART to PUT a mature filter on their drawing because it was NEVER intended for anyone whom was a minor. Sure, teenagers or younger teens are STILL gonna find it anyway but this doesn't change the fact the artworks were NEVER meant for them. Please stop expecting us artists to babysit kids. That's on their ACTUAL parents. Or in this case a RESPONSIBLE adult. OR a chat admin can boot them out or whomever owns whatever social media platform their on. Just because NSFW is not something you can understand at the time nor will ever understand doesn't mean you have the right to label someone something that can DESTROY their LIVES! We just wanna enjoy these characters we loved as kids or even new ones now because of their personalities or exaggerated features. Your discomfort while understandable isn't anyone's problem. If someone was in danger you can bet someone with a common sense will do something about it, but if it's just you going "EW" on fan art then please don't look at it and leave. It's okay if you feel uncomfortable. Just block, dislike, delete a certain tag, whatever. JUST DON'T label someone as something they are not when you don't know them. Seriously, when I've argued with people using the same excuses brought up in this video, after a while they go completely quiet cause they no longer have anything left to argue. THAT is how easy it is to tear apart this mentality. Sorry if this comment was super long or IS super long but gotta clear the air out here. Just relieved someone finally said something about this matter.
Holy cheese and crackers, literally (and I mean literally) everything said in this comment summarizes how I also felt this whole time, especially the first paragraph, the Streamline thing, and the aging up part. Thank you for bringing your voice/words here. This actually made feel better about myself as a human being.
@@mysryuza You're welcome ^ ^ I wanted to originally air this out on her video, but considering Streamline's fans are not only minors but they are very unreasonable. I don't mean this in a rude way but talking to them is like talking to a wall with a couple of arguments being repeated and eventually when they know they have nothing left to argue they shut up and move on to someone else. Plus, I did comment there and Stream STILL hasn't replied to the comments that have very good points and she's been ignoring this whole mess for a while now. She may not have started this but she sure as heck made a bigger mess than what Harley or Dreary did. At least those two only made one video of the Erin Clover situation. I know I'm coming off angry but who wouldn't when some TH-camr/"Commentary channel" brainwashed their minor and easily impressionable audience with a topic they can't understand nor be consistent about and putting a life-destroying label on artists just because they feel fictional characters should have rights. I don't think Stream is a bad person, but she sure as heck was careless during all this. She may not be obligated to reply but you'd think someone would at least acknowledge the CSA victims that came out in her comment section saying how comparing their experience to fictional characters is offensive. Anyway, sorry for a long butt of a reply. Guess I hadn't completely aired out all my frustrations yet.
How to win the "god-tier" mode by convincing Mali shes wrong Step one. comment "No" Step two. tell her to delete and change the video because you said "No" Step 3. your done. You are now god. all jokes aside that was interesting take. I'm tried of people throwing around serious labels
For me I'm fine with it and yeah that includes NSFW. Where it's a bit "Oh no" is when a small child is aged up for it. Like let's say a five year old. But I don't think it's a big deal to age up a 16 year old for NSFW. And I so appreciate you talking about how you shouldn't witch-hunt or judge/morally bash people for doing things you don't like.
Couldn't agree more. We have to remember that they're nothing more than drawings and as emotionally attacted as we may be to them, at the end of they day, it is still just a drawing. They do still represent something and it's totally fine to be creeped out and even genuinely horrorified, but witch hunts for NSFW of aged up characters protects no one and only hurts real people. Even still, there's some art that I side-eye the artist pretty hard.
Its all fiction in the end. Never in history has stopping people from making fiction been a good idea. Just slap a content warning on it if need be and move on.
I disagree with the “I don’t think it’s a big deal to age up a 16 year old for nsfw” people shouldn’t be aging up minor characters just so they can use them in NSFW situations
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.
I personally agree with and hold this same view so I have nothing to really debate about it. Just be kind to one another....if a person does actual aging up that isn't some "They're 18+ because I say so" bullshit, please if it makes you uncomfortable then disengage from them and move on....don't call them pedos....don't try and call their morality into question (because children that is silly....aged up characters ARE adults, your speculation of the artist's motivations are just that...speculations) Cp exists....I assure you, people who actually do proper age ups aren't doing so because they prey on children
@@GingerSadClaps69 oh well they do. maps have been advocating for fictional cp for ageeesss. especially in the uk, where it’s illegal, they’re advocating for it.
Sorry for commenting a second time but I find it funny that despite what was said in the video, people still say "As long as it's not for NSFW" I'm sorry, but as a fanfic writer let me give my perspective. I like to write romantic and dark stuff. This isn't to say I like kids. =/ I just make an alternate storyline having nothing to do with canon for said character and its mature. Is it weird for others? Yeah, I get why. But that is your own personal feelings and it has nothing to do with other people. Stop reading the title of this video when the video already answered everything. Kindly WATCH the ENTIRE VIDEO! Cause it feels like the people saying this are just reading the title, immediately commenting and just left it at that without learning a gosh damn thing. One more thing, if you don't want your view of the character corrupted or you feel uncomfortable, then don't look at these artworks, fics or whatever. Just enjoy what you like without it being corrupted. I also wanna give my perspective as a fic writer previously. I like to imagine scenarios for certain characters but obviously them being older. For example; Zombie apocalypse setting, two headcanon gay characters in said Zombie setting and while they face hardships through the apocalyptic world they live in they eventually form a relationship after much development. Then BOOM they trust each other enough to do bed on bed things. Consent tis key. I may do the naughty in my stories but I develop it personally til both characters trust each other. So there, perspective from an old fanfic writer.
Okay, off topic here but I don’t get why you would write an already existing character into an AU completely different setting and change their personality so much to the point they’re not even the same character anymore when you can just make an OC. Could you shed some light onto that?
@@hyjinx1889 probably because they felt like it? some fanfictions takes place in another setting or different perspective such as Mafia au, coffee shop au and etc. But if the characters seems out of place then thats their perspective of the character, people make fanfictions to make stories of what could have happen like what ifs such as what if this character had children or what if narutos parents didnt die. Some just use an already existing character because its their comfort character and heck i seen so many fanfictions on wattpad that are so cringy and the character isnt acting the same in the anime. i hope this answers your question btw im not a fanfiction writer
@@hyjinx1889 Uhhh....there's nothing to shed. ._. Simple answer is, because we can and want to. When people write stories of such scenarios one has to figure out how this character's personality is gonna be in this scenario. It's interestingband comforting for us rather than some OC made to resemble said character that we love. There's no reasons why it needs to be called into question. We want to and that's it.
@@hyjinx1889 There are people that change characters beyond all recognition, and their portrayal is so far off you wonder why they didn't make a fan character, but that really has nothing to do with the age of said character. It happens whether or not they are adults, whether or not they're aged up, whether or not they're genderbent, etcetera. To answer the reason as to why; for one, they could just be unimaginative, designing a character from scratch is hard work, and if your character ends up looking like an orange Sonic, you might as well just use Sonic. Actually, that's two; if they created a 'new' character without enough significant changes, everyone would complain about how it's just a rip off. Another point is, that a _good_ writer _won't_ change their personality, Bubbles will still be cheery, Buttercup will still be angsty, and Blossom will still be smart/bossy; they'll just act more mature. Such as not literally going to kindergarten to color with crayons. Actually, Bubbles might still like coloring with crayons because of her personality, but a good artist would have her coloring a more complex, adult coloring book design. No, not _that_ kind of 'adult,' the kind that just has more lines or something... it's a thing.
@@notinuse90 yeah, i spent a lot more time reading fanfiction since my last reply, and I definitely understand it better. It’s fun thinking about how characters would react in a different universe, or who they might be like if something else happened instead. However, I still feel like people alter the original characters to such a degree that you don’t even recognize them from their source material. Not that that’s a bad thing, I think some fanfiction AU’s are so well written that they could be entire books, if they weren’t based on an already existing character from a franchise. It just feels like wasted potential for something original. Of course, most fanfic author’s are writing for fun, and that’s completely fine.
ive seen ppl simping for aged up versions of a child character and that still creeps me out even tho its “legal”. bc its kind of reminds me of situations in real life where older people/adults who have watched someone grow up as a kid to adult and start a relationship with them when they are both adults. It still seems SUPER weird and creepy to me. esp in the case of woody allen where he was literally marrying his adopted daughter he RAISED.
Reality is different though since these characters live short/unrealistic lives while actually watching somebody grow up is a lot more in depth since it's REAL and spans years upon years of interaction and human development. Seeing a young character turn into an adult is 100% not the same as actual human relationships, in fact it's concerning people think that it's a good comparison since one isn't real and they should be able to discern the difference in these vastly different situations...
@@chillfactory9000 Bruh I grew a crush on Hiccup in HTTYD 2 and onwards but shit he was an adult in that movie. People legitimately simp over aged up versions of characters who aren’t even an adult in canon?!!! Ew
As a teen growing up in a fandom space, I fucked up a lot. Some things I wish I didn't do and I really wish I had gone to adults sooner. I thought I knew better, and I feel like a lot of people don't remember that kids are so focused that they think they can handle anything without realizing that these things will haunt them. Aging up characters isn't terrible, in fact, most of the time aging them up and changing it from teens in adult situations makes it better. It isn't easy to see the sexualizing of teens, and that's really what affects people. It won't change, but I agree that it really should be pointed at the people creating it, than the fans that aren't old enough to understand yet most of the time.
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
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!
I find it crazy how so many people would attack and harass a small fanartist like Erin Clover for drawing NSFW of an aged up Bakugou BEHIND an 18+ pay wall on Patreon, yet those same people would turn a blind eye to the creator of Dragon Maid, a super popular mainstream anime that blatantly sexualizes characters who look and act like literal TODDLERS. Kids are far more likely to see the actual anime Dragon Maid than they are to find the NSFW art that Erin Clover drew, and Dragon Maid DEFINATELY has a worse impact in our society than Erin Clover, given that that anime normalizes pedophilia and lolicon behavior and Erin Clover just wants to ship her OC with Bakugou I swear the Erin Clover drama is so frickin pointless and stupid and people will just attack any one small creator for doing something they don't like just because they are able to, and Streamline Workshop definitely didn't help with the pointless drama by telling her large child audience about it, which will definately earn Erin Clover more harrassment than if she just ignored it. Again, source material always impacts the audience more than the fandom creations surrounding it, and attacking one small creator over the works they made does not help in the slightest. So thank you for being the only reasonable content creator who brought this issue up in a mature and responsible way. I appreciate people like that :3
The thing is with miss koboyashi dragon maid, it has loli characters and and that is a topic that not many people like to talk about, a loli is a short and petite anime girl (regardless of age) people do that to characters just for character design, not to be p3d0philic or to be sexual.... The characters there are given ages for both human form and dragon form, if you don't like it because it has loli characters, that's fine.... But do remember its character design, just like uzaki chan... People thought she was a child and a boy Good talk😂👍
@@Candy_Flower Except, uh... One of the sexualized characters in dragon maid, Kanna, is a literal child in design, vibes, age, character. She looks like a kid, acts like a kid, is a kid according to dragon standards, goes to human elementary school with other kids... It doesn't matter if she's AcTuAlLy A 1o0o YeAr oLd DrAgOn, if a 1000 is still a child in dragon terms. She's not just a "petite anime character". By all definitions she's a kid. And even ignoring that fact... One of her human classmates, again, a child by any and all definitions, without even the 1000 year old dragon excuse, is sexualized by being the one sexualizing Kanna the most. Now, I don't really care. It's fiction, she's not real. But you have to admit people aren't wrong to think it's weird to sexualize a fictional 8 yearold.
@@MsLilly200 yeah i'm with you on that part + i'm glad you don't apply fiction to reality, and i'm not into 8yr old lolis, but people keep forgetting that throwing words like pdfile around (because people like lolis or short anime girls) is watering down the term p3d0 and it drives me mad. LIKE WTF!?💀
@@Candy_Flower Oh yeah, I definitely hate that people do that. Ped0 is SUCH a strong word. I really hate that people are using the term for something that's not at all real. Like, sexualising a fake 8 year old anime girl is pretty gross imo, but it's nowhere near the same level as actual cp. Like, the only time that word should be used for drawings, if it's like, super realistic depictions of kids. And/Or drawings based on real kids. Like, celebrity kids or whatever. It's really kinda making the term feel less than it actually is imo. Like crying wolf. If I see someone screaming about ped0s online these days I my first though will be that it's just someone drawing risque 15 year old anime characters or something. Instead of you know, actual ped0 stuff. And that's really shitty. (Also people apparently actually report this stuff, to like, official anti cp places, which takes resources away from real children being harmed.)
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 TH-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.
This just reminds me of that one time I was called a pedophile at age 17 because I liked 16-year-old characters.... Jesus that was a fucking awful time
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
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
What are your thoughts about aging up characters for the sole purpose of shipping them with another character which is an adult, usually just to 18 despite the still very large age gap? This is something I've always found super icky, so I've always avoided them, but I'm curious to hear your opinion since you didn't cover it in this video
Sorta hard to say on a personal level. Obviously they’d both be adults so that’s fine in a legal sense, but then you have questions about their relationship to one another. Are they friends, mentor and student, have some influence on their young life? Stuff like that can change the way a relationship feels and if its the sort of thing I’d side eye or not. As a general rule I wouldn’t see anything morally abhorrent about that sort of age gap provided it wasn’t a case of something along the lines of grooming. But even when I say that I can see a situation where someone is writing a story about that specific dynamic and I dont believe the mere existence of something bad in media is a problem in and of itself. It usually comes down to framing and intent. For an example that recently cropped up in the comments here, Ceil (aged up of course) and Sebastian from black butler would be something I find questionable but even then I can see a hypothetical story where it works as an examination of codependency, antisocial behaviours, abuse of power and the messiness of feelings. So even in that I can see potential value. Unfortunately the simple answer is ‘it depends’ case by case and all that. And once again I want to emphasise that even if I or anyone else finds something uncomfortable it doesn’t inherently make it bad, so if you feel uncomfortable with age gap stories or stories where a character was aged up to be with an older character that’s completely valid and you’re within your right to dislike and avoid it. Hope that ramble was helpful to you. ♥️
@@MaliMalware Follow ups to this based on a very specific ship I ranted on a bit too much in another comment (we're just gonna simplify the context a lot here) since I'm just kinda curious what you think: What if one character is a minor and the other one is age ambiguous with some fans interpreting them as the equivalent to late teen and others viewing them as a young/immature adult? Also, what if the characters aren't the same species and thus don't mature at the same rate, like with a human and an elf, causing one character to grow up way faster than the other? This can be a case of two characters starting at the same relative maturity level but becoming unbalanced due to the age up or the minor-in-canon character being of the race that ages up faster, catching the adult at the exact same maturity level if not going ahead of them.
@Dennise Hernandez I think that its better, cause if you age the adult down, then it allows you to explore their relationship as equals. I guess the relationship being unbalanced, with one character holding power over the other is my biggest iffyness with the whole aging up thing
FINALLY someone who's anti-purity culture in fandom. Adults like adult things and like to do adult stuff. Fandoms freak out too much about adult content and don't give it nearly enough nuance.
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
Having a huge family tree of ocs, I don't understand how aging up a character is problematic. Freezing a character at a specific age feels restricting...I love delving into their past or exploring their futures and I know I'm not the only one. Characters in TV shows have flashbacks or flash fowards. Granted, I don't really use aging up to explore really explicit things...but if you're aging up characters, you should be able to explore the full realm of adulthood experiences.
I thought I was going to be called out, but I was not... *sigh of relief* In all seriousness, I'm glad that I'm not the only person who considered or actually did aged-up characters for fan-works....as a 21 year old. I do it mainly for the more mature themes, like violence or trauma. But sexual themes can come with the territory and I am no stranger to shipping. My main concern was when someone like YanDev 'tried to make his characters "18 and older", but made it bloody obvious they weren’t. He was just trying to avoid backlash and failed miserably. It's one of the main reasons I'm no longer part of that fandom... I'm actually surprised you didn't mention Steven Universe:Future. That's a great example of creators themselves aging up the characters and doing it very well for the far more adult themes and topics the show addresses. Anyways, great video Mal! It does help anyone who might be interested in fan creations and fan-works as a reference point in the case of aging up characters! I also secretly hope this reaches the creators of the new aged-up Powerpuff Girls movie or series on Netflix, so they can know how to not royally screw up the characters, while still addressing more adult topics with those characters..... Well, one fan can dream at least.
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.
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*
I also went through the same thing- I had a favourite character ages 13- onwards, but I'm 23 now. I felt like I had to interact with something I grew up loving differently just because of my age, it was a very strange position to be in and I've never heard anyone else mention it so it was refreshing to hear your perspective on this.
At 16:50 I just realized that Bubbles’ left hand is on her right arm. Also I have two head cannons about the main characters of Jojo’s bizarre Adventure look like teenagers/young adults is because of Jonathan joestsar, his manliness is so powerful that it causes his descendants’ bodies to age up (pun not intended). Edit: Nevermind, I see you corrected that mistake.
I'd love to hear the "against" side's of "aging up" when child characters do grow up in to adults in shows, video games and movies and handle adult themes. Like Rugrats, Harry Potter, Last of Us, heck in Fallout 3 and the SIms, your characters are literally birthed and grow up and do adult things but somehow only in art, it's a controversy.
Like instead of aging up characters to 18, why not instead go further and say the character is now 21? The same age one needs to be to legally consume alcohol?
This has changed my perspective and opened up my mind to aging up characters. I still disagree with a small handful of points, but I thank you for opening my mind and showing me my ignorance.
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.
I feel like the people who have problems with those dumb things are people on twitter and tiktok, people on those apps are always searching for drama and a chance to cancel somebody on every single chance they get and it ends up sounding stupid. im glad there are people out there who talk about those things how they actually are without searching for any mistake in the little details
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.
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.
My two cents: It matters exponentially less what people do with fictional characters (who are not real, do not have feelings, and cannot be hurt) than what happens with real children. Fandom's conflation of fiction with real-life crimes only serves to hurt real victims and hurt innocent fan creators. Up to 90% of reported material to organizations who look into this kind of abuse is unprosecutable because the characters were fictional and no crime was committed. Fandom wank does not matter when false or misleading reports are taking up time and resources from helping real people. Am I uncomfortable with a lot of fan content out there? Sure. Will I raise an eyebrow at some of it? Yes. But unless a real person is being hurt, blocking the people who make that content and/or not searching for it in the first place is more than enough to curate my fandom experience.
Now when I hear someone on TikTok say oh this person sexualizes minors and is a p9do, I have to wonder are they talking about a actual child or a god damn cartoon character
I mean if someone is against aging up a character, then that means they take their canon age over any age drawn by fans. But if that's the case... Then even aging a character down wouldn't matter either. Ergo, if someone drew a character who is normally 65 years old as a 5 year old regardless of the theme. I.e sexual situations, etc. The site or person against aging them up, would have to approve it since... Canonically they ARE 65 years old. Personally aging UP a character to allow for more mature themes to occur should be allowed, but aging them down and drawing them in those mature situations should be restricted.
I think aging up characters for NSFW purposes is fine to a certain extent, in my opinion. Like, if a character was a teen, I get it and that's fair. Aging up characters that were canonically less than ten years old for the purposes of NSFW works feels a bit... off, to me personally. But everyone is entitled to their own opinions! My main rule for fan content (mostly fanfic) is "don't like, don't touch". I avoid interacting with anything I feel uncomfortable with and think others should do the same.
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.
this was a really good and nuanced take! i really liked this video. i started reading and interacting with homestuck when i was 13, the same age as the main cast. i always viewed them as growing with me as the years went on and the story grew more complex. as i did get older, i interacted with NSFW content with these characters (as a teen, viewing them as teens) and never really saw a problem with it; they were the same age as me and each other, so it matched my real life experiences. i'm sure they were depicted as adults, but teen me just saw something weird with looking at adults in that way; purity culture really fucked with my head. it's a bit similar with my hero academia; i'm only tangentially involved, but really started consuming content when i started university and sort of mentally aged the characters up in my head to make them easier to relate to lol. most fan content i see is uni AUs/similar things like this, where the characters are adults. a good and impactful story is ideally good and impactful for *everyone*, including adults and including people who have sex.
i believe second argument has a point, if you "age them up" but then barely change them/or keep them in senerios that are mainly centered around children, it just feels off and not appropriate
I am a fic writer. I've been in fandom since I was twelve, and was writing fic well before that without knowing it was something others did. I'm also a survivor of CSA and SA (censoring because ah, youtube does love to delete comments). My two cents--since so many people always shout "um, don't talk over CSA survivors" is--anyone who tries to hurt others over this is ridiculous and I think they should go see a therapist. Aging characters up FOR ANY REASON is absolutely okay! I've even seen this go so far as telling actual minors that they're not allowed to be attracted to or have sexual feelings for characters who are literally their age, for godsakes! And I also think this does go for truly problematic content too; if it hadn't been for fic in which a character I loved went through what I went through, I would have never known that what happened to me wasn't normal. The fic being tagged with CSA and r*pe tags are literally the door that helped me realize I'd been hurt in ways there were words for, and that not every child was so terrified of older men or felt like they were going to be treated like I had. In addition, I am someone who has OCD, and whose partner has OCD relating to purity because of what they went through as a child. When people criticize others online like this for ~problematic~ content like aging characters up or (tagged and researched) extreme topics, they don't realize that they can cause the development of disorders like depression, anxiety, and--yes--OCD. Everyone jokes about OCD, but they've never known the anxiety of wanting to pull your mind out and wash it clean because you're bad and evil and no one should love you. My partner does, and friends of ours do, and it is only through the love and support of one another that they've been able to feel worthy of love. *Your words have consequences*. And those words CAN come with incredibly serious consequences for you as well--because people can sue for emotional distress and damages if they can prove you caused them, and if they attempt unalive or you tell them to attempt unalive, that can have monetary consequences and even jail or prison time.
good lord, why does youtube change if a comment has a like when you edit it a little? regardless, thank you for the like; so many people ask for the opinions of CSA victims on this topic but so few actually acknowledge them.
I have no evidence for this, but I feel like this discourse somehow stems from the real world occurrence of adult men actively waiting for a teenager to "age up" to 18 to become legal, which is definitely creepy and messed up no matter how you look at it, but that some people try to apply this to fandom and it just... doesn't apply, since the characters don't age at all and only look as old or act as sexual as they do as depicted by their creator.
Of course, that isn't illegal. If you're grooming the kid, that's a crime, but if you meet a child, and then meet them again once they're legal; it's still creepy, just not illegal. I make this distinction because if you punish the later, as if it were grooming, then it's basically 'in for a penny, in for a pound.' If they're getting in trouble either way, why not go whole hog and groom the shit outta them? Which, for the record, would be a _very bad_ thing.
@@Wendy_O._Koopa It's immoral I'd say to wait for a child to be "of age" just to have sexual and/or romantic relationships with them, when there are countless of people around your age that would be your type. It's just WORSE if you also groom them in the process.
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.
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 mostly agree with this video, people have favorite characters as kids and when they grow up, they may want to explore how the character may look and behave as if they’d grown up with them, as long as they look and behave like adults I think it’s okay. When it gets uncomfortable for me is when (like you said) the character looks and behaves exactly like they did when they were a kid, and the artist just says “they’re actually 18 so it’s ok,” then it just feels like a loophole. Also, if a full-grown adult looks at like, a 5-year old character that they didn’t grow up with, and their mind immediately jumps to “hmm, I wonder what this character would look like as an adult in an inappropriate situation,” that’s creepy too.
I had a friend that was on rule34 all the time, and i mean ALL the time. He use to share the porn he found on it to the group chat, some of them being minors. He always said that they were "Aged-up" or that he "Didn't know" even though he sent a lot of images of TEENAGE robot. Me and my other friend that was in the group chat told him about it, and he said "Well theyre just aged up so its fine".. He called us kink-shamers because we were against his weird ass porn he sent.. Still pisses me off to this day that people like him exist
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.
tbh I'm glad my side was challenged on this. I was strongly against it before but now I understand. Thanks for making this, you brought a lot of valuable stuff to the table that most people are afraid to.
Sad thing is MHA came out when I was a minor and now I'm 20 almost 21 and yeah I "crush" on the older characters but I've seen my age of cosplayers get attacked for age up characters they still have an attachment even if they don't have a "crush" on.
I noticed the new stills, they look great! All in all, great video overall! I am curious about your take on aging down or focusing on what happened in a canon character's past and having E-For-Everyone romance - as in no smut, but at most something like the "literally rearranging the furniture because we got a new dresser and we're struggling to find a place to put it and it's freaking heavy" for a joke. I genuinely don't have much understanding nor experience when it comes to this kind of stuff, and I'm looking to try to learn more and see what others think of this stuff. At this time, I am on the "It depends on the context, the author's intentions, and the whole case-by-case shtick" side because of all of my lack of knowing and understanding, especially when there are a myriad of factors. Some examples of what I was specifically thinking: Example 1: If canon character A is canonically 30 years old and fanon character B is 21 years old. In this scenario, character A would be aged down to around 21 ~ 23 to just close the age gap. Again, this would be E-For-Everyone romance with no smut. Example 2: A fanfic centered around in canon and/or fanon character's past and potentially any past relationships that they had say (again E-For-Everyone romance with no smut, but at most a stupid joke like literally rearranging the furniture). An example I have in mind is something like a 50 year old canon character reminiscing about when they and their spouse were in their mid-twenties.
Okay so generally speaking people have little to no issue with ageing down characters at all unless they're doing so for NSFW content which is like the opposite of what's happening here and I would argue that most everyone would have a massive problem with that. Rightly so. Going out of your way to make underage content is a whole other ball game. But aging down characters for story telling purposes not related to NSFW content, well that's just....normal in all media. Happens all the time and there's no issues with it as far as I can tell. That said I'll briefly address your two examples, if you're ageing a character down for NSFW but they're still an adult then there's still no issue with it. So Example 1 is completely unproblematic, in particular because you're not even engaging in smut to begin with. So really if anyone took issue with that I'd question what their actual complaint was. At a guess I'd say it would stem from over protective or possessiveness of a character or hating self insert stories to begin with. Where as Example 2 is more or less just....well story telling. I mean you wouldn't look twice at a character having a flash back or reminiscing on their younger years in any media ever so I see no reason as to why it would be questioned in fanfiction either. TLDR: Example 1 and 2, completely unproblematic. Ageing down for story telling is normal and fun. Ageing down for smut is fine if they're all still of age. Ageing down to childhood for smut is nasty. Thank you for coming to my TedTalk
@@MaliMalware Thank you for your insight, it's very much appreciated. I wish that the dramas surrounding fanfiction that have happened in the recent years didn't rear their heads to sow confusion.
‘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 lost a very close friend because I aged up two characters by about three-four years so I could actually ship them..I never drew anything NSFW with them because I grew up with those characters, but they ended up harassing me.. That friend..sucked, to say the least..
When I first got into the vocaloids, I was 13. I instantly fell in love with the Kagamine twins, Rin and Len, and I still love them to this day. I even have figurines of them now! When I was 13, Rin and Len were canonically 14. Now I am 25, and Rin and Len are still 14. I don't care, they're my comfort characters, fuck off.
I think ppl fall in love with the adult personalities and looks given to young characters. So many media producers make teen characters that don't look young and then make them do adult things like risking their lives, saving the world etc.
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 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"
Personally I enjoy ageing up characters either for pieces of media that I've enjoyed or my own since its fun to brainstorm how their world and story and personalities would change, like I have a story where being an adventurer and fighting to defend the world using magic powers is a paid carrier you can apply for at the age of 19 if you have the proper training beforehand, the main characters for that story are 16 but I enjoy imagining them as in their 20s purely to see how much they'd have grown and how different their story would be, to anyone who outright hates ageing up characters, just remember that it's not always for sexual purposes, no matter the age of the person creating the fan material
I've never seen someone discuss this topic before and I wanna thank you for it. This was a amazing take on the the topic of how aging fictional can be shown in many forms.
Regarding characters over the age of 18 still being in high school, it's still definitely a thing that can happen. My brother was born in late February, and he turned 19 during his senior year of high school. So not a *common* thing by far, but not an impossible one.
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.
where i draw the line is when they're purposely sexualizing them or putting them in sexual situations i'm not even gonna mention the fact when they try to age them up just to ship them with an adult while they're 10-14
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.
As someone who actually aged up a few characters for stories, I’m so glad you talked about this! I’ve been nervous about someone being disrespectful about aging up (or aging down) fictional characters, because with my stories they including dark themes and humor (but no inappropriate themes). So, I find it weird having a fictional kid character taking place in activities that a kid would not be doing (yes ik some things show that but that’s not my point). In my case, I’m in between the debate about changing the age of characters but, in some cases it’s ok to age up or down characters but in other scenarios no, don’t do it.
Thank you so much for making this video. I agree with everything you said. I'm so tired of people targeting others without thinking through their actions and immediately think of someone as bad. Very black and white ya know? Tbh, it did affect me as i started to think that maybe im the bad person this whole time and just making excuses. Im so glad this video came out and explain everything that I've been thinking about and want to share things regarding this topic. The script for this vid is very constructive and flows really well which makes people digest what they're hearing and processing. Lovely video, keep up the good work!🌸💖
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 TH-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
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😢😢
Small correction in the YandereDev part tho. He didn't age them up because of the violence. People were complaining that you can take and sell panty shots from high school girls....
I had to double check this point
Also got a feeling it was so he wouldn't get flack for letting his characters be in adult games...
Which makes no sense. Ok, there _are_ schools in the world that end when you are 19, but that makes bo sense for Akademi High.
Senpai is at least one year older than Ayano/Yandere-chan, who is in turn 2 grades higher than his sister, meaning that there is students _at least_ one year younger than Ayano to two years younger.
If Akademi High's youngest student is possibly 18, that would make Ayano be in the 19 to 21 age gap and Senpai at least 22 and if there are students older than him they could be 23.
However, the wiki says that Taro/Senpai is 18, so ayano would be 17 ans his sister 16/15. Making it that players can be taking panty shots of 15 to 18/19 year old girls.
@Henrrry_96 not too sure, since it’s been a while since I watched anything on this game, but I do remember there be an alternative for the panty shots system. Pretty sure it was something like finding out different gossip or something
@@sophasopha2357 Yeah and I feel like he got rid of the panty shots completely but I'm not sure about that, I know the majority of people use the other methods though
Also I'm pretty sure the... actual panties are never on the screen anymore, the animation and actually taking the picture isn't there anymore afaik
@Henrrry_96 not elementary, the uniforms are usually worn by middle-school students _and_ high school students, but tbh he probably should've just changed the default uniforms to ones that already tell you "senior highschool" to avoid confusion, or even just make the entire thing take place during university or something.
I've always felt that aging up a character was definitely a case by case kinda thing but I've always been kinda afraid to share that same view with others. So seeing your video about the topic was definitely refreshing. Espialy since I've recently became friends with someone who likes to write an older version of Diona from Genshin Impact, purely because they don't like the idea of writing a child character they like serving and making drinks at a bar. With an understandable reason like that, it's a little sad to be afraid for them should they ever decide to post their headcanon's publicly due to the exact same hate that was described in the video.
So I'll end by saying this, thanks for putting that different view on the topic more publicly out there, I'm sure there will definitely be people who appreciate it :3
your friend deff follows under the case by case thing, i think it’s absolutely fine in that way as they aren’t making a child into an adult for suggestive intentions but to make a story more comfortable!
Personally I find it fun to age up a character to make a design of them as an older version. I don’t sexualize them though...
I ratioed the creators comment 😅
same here✨
@@Foxnhund cool!!
same
@@icarus2661 awesome! Also love your pfp and name 🖐🏻😩✨
Well at that point you're just acknowledging that people get older over time.
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.
My thoughts are.. No, no it's not, creators age up their own characters all the time so why the heck not?
No ew
Now if someone aged DOWN a character and had them do things they would be able to do as their canon adult age... Now THAT is wrong, especially if it's sexual.
@Pricey the Object Show Simp characters are aged down all the time for preschool/daycare aus or childhood friends. It's not very dubious honestly and actual creators of their own characters have done it just to see how they look.
@Pricey the Object Show Simp yeah, I mean, it's not dubious or sexual at all, but tropes n aus like that are very common vbbbbvnbhmbmvn
@@bambismiilk2133 found the puritans
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
If they're aged up and act/look like an adult, what's the problem? Fact is, we age and our favorite characters don't, so we make art/stories of "what if they finally grew up" and it's pretty cool/not problematic imo.
Also, actual human relationships vs "fantasy" relationships are very different. Comparing reality to fantasy is silly, if you can't discern the difference between the two you shouldn't be involved with fantasy/the internet in general.
Agreed.
Here's the reason why I love it whenever my mom would blurted out "Aren't they just a fantasy/not real?" whenever I would tell her my current obsessions.
Always remind me that they're not real and it is alright for me to think whatever I want with them, as long as I don't bring them to the real world. The only thing I can bring to my real life is whatever good lessons they can bring to us.
THANK. YOU.
I 100% agree
The MLP:FiM episode Growing Up is Hard to Do may or may not have touched up on this. Especially when it came to the fanart, where Sweetie Belle giving bedroom eyes was the focus of most of the episode's fanart. There are more pictures of that than of the characters who actually debuted in the episode combined.
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.
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 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”
IDK if anyone else has mentioned, but I'll comment anyway. I remember as a 15 year old, I watched a PBS documentary about Superheroes, and there was an old interview clip in it where Frank Miller said he wrote The Dark Knight Returns because he couldn't live with the fact that he became older than Batman, his childhood hero. So he wrote a comic about Batman in his 50s coming out of retirement. One of the most critically acclaimed comics of all time btw.
I love the points made in this video sm because honestly, internet spaces tend to ignore nuance and the fact that multiple things can be true at once. I was guilty of this a lot when I was younger, so it makes sense to me that a lot of the people making these absolutist claims about aging-up characters are pretty young. Like I'm sorry, but there's nothing problematic about reimagining a fictional character as a grown-ass adult taxpayer who also has sex. I completely understand the 'bait and switch' argument, cause I find that a bit concerning too, but acting as though all works which age up fictional minors are inherently wrong is just reductive and ignores the simple fact that people grow up. Also, it reminds me of that one onion article, "Obama canceled for marrying Michelle, former child."
This is probs an unpopular opinion but: i think aging down characters for a ship is much more creepier than aging them up
HELL YEAH. Unless if it’s a minor making an adult character a child for a ship, THATS JUST WEIRD
its always the "unpopular opinions" that are the popular opinion
its worse when it takes place in a type of daycare too
For me it depends - cuz some shows do it too (Phineas and Ferb for example) as a way to show where these two's relationship would be if they were to grow up a bit.
If it's a ship of two minors being aged up then I personally don't mind it. It's WAY more creepier when u age up a minor so you can ship them with an ADULT. Like this is actual shit that happens - an adult knows a minor ever since they were young, and waits a few good years just so they can hit on them. This usually involves grooming too. I'm not gonna call someone a groomer for doing it (I was groomed myself, I know the definition of that damned word) but I'd be genuinely uncomfortable and concerned for the person if they think this is... Normal behavior.
why would that be unpopular though? I'd only think if the issue was that it's an elderly couple and you're looking back at them being young adults and having a problem with that, could be weird, but yeah. Aging DOWN is weird as hell.
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
I think so many young kids growing up with cancel culture (where they find out their favorite creator was a horrible predator) overthink these things because they're inexperienced and, well, traumatized. They learn a few words within a single context, and don't know how to use it, so they go overboard. They just need time.
Yeah I definitely feel like that’s the case for me lol
Sometimes I just want to write Homura Akemi being an EMT and living with her cat in an apartment, she's been through a lot and showing her older and still going I feel is more symbolic and about overcoming the odds of the story's narrative. No sex about it, but if you change enough to make sure the character is indeed older then hey go buck wild. Keep it legal, go apeshit
that sounds wholesome. What is her cat's name?
@@Limacinablues a friend of mine came up with the name of her cat, it's Theressa!
@@asheternal8233 nice
ayye another pmmm fan
This sounds so cute just a older Homura healing her mental issues and keeping a emotional support animal I love this idea!
As a MHA fan, it's really ironic and hilarious seeing ppl give Erin Clover shit for things that Horikoshi got criticized for, with these same fans defending him. Lmao
At the end of the day, if your not creating CP, then while I got my grievances depending on the situation, I don't care and I'm sick in tired of ppl making callouts on these ppl instead of y'know, ppl who create actual CP and are actual child predators/pedophiles.
Only problem i would have with it is if the character actually looks like a child
I think one of the issues people had with her was that she said they were aged up but still looked like they did as kids. Going as far as to draw them fucking in the school uniforms they ware as first years. But I can sti agree with your point that the fandoms have a really bad issue with caring more about fictional kids then real ones at times and its fucking sad.
Well, she’s kind of problematic considering she drew hawks and bakugou.. (TW for SA/R@PE) R@PING her self insert. She’s really, really gross.
@@fozzieland Personally even that is subjective. This is why people should private their accounts and put TW in their bios. I am a csa victim and I consumed that type of media in both my teens and in adulthood as a form of cope (I went to therapy as an adult too). I don't wish that on anyone nor do I want to do it to other people. I get that it's harmful for some victims but other victims still used it as a cope. I don't know about this Erin person and I cannot speak for everyone but I know other victims to write or draw their self inserts in these kinds of scenarios so they feel like they have control over a moment that they didn't in the past. I don't know if you'd call all people who engage in that content gross but it's kind of invalidating if so
80% of Manga artists get their upbringing from Hentai *Mainly lol li and Shota* I feel like the anger is misdirected
The crush i had on Zuko as a kid was so powerful that I want him to age with me. Comfort character. When I was in high school, I read a lot of school stories with zuko in them, now I'm an adult, and I wanna see stuff about him being in college, or being a grown man. Most of the characters i like aged up were characters i had crushes on when I was 13, and now I want to see stories about them dealing with the shit I'm dealing with now!!
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.
Surprisingly, as someone approaching adulthood within the next four years, I've spent a lot of time not knowing how to feel. Even though I'm getting older, I can't suddenly remove those crushes I have and have had like clockwork. They developed in my youth and age had little to no influence on my crushes since they developed when I was younger or around the same age as the target character, but I've found myself feeling guilty and afraid of admitting that I still have some of them. It's a refresher to see someone with a similar view confirm that what I've experienced isn't unheard of and isn't wrong.
Don’t be letting anyone shame or chide you for being a kid with interests. You’ve not done anything wrong and have nothing to feel guilty about in enjoying characters designed to be enjoyed! Keep yourself safe online and try not to get too worried about what any of us (me included) are screaming about on here. 🌟
OH MY GOD FINALLY! SOMEONE Finally talked about this whole mess from an unbias perspective! I legitimately cried. I've had anxiety for the longest time now ever since the Erin Clover situation was brought up that hindered my drawing capability due to paranoia.
I dunno how long this comment is going to be but I'm willing to go paragraph mode to express a lot of my own thoughts on this situation. First off, the frustration I have with certain TH-camrs that address this situation. It comes from an extremely bias perspective. As much as I don't wanna be mean, Streamline ESPECIALLY tackled this topic SO BAD. I don't know who started the Erin Clover situation but ohhh boy! It was a MESS and STILL IS! Her audience is mostly that of minors and when you encourage such a thought process of putting emotion over logic, someone's going to get hurt. I'm not saying Stream intended for anyone to get hurt. I know her videos were from a place of good faith. But her bias and personal experiences with someone disgusting have clouded her judgement causing the flip flop of discussing the topic.
I am aware she isn't the only person whom touched this topic poorly and spitefully, but in my honest opinion so far being she is slightly more known, she kinda was the worse in regards to discussing this topic due to making 3 videos about it and completely confusing her audience's moralities. (Note: I'm NOT speaking about how she is as a person. I'm just talking about how poorly the topic was addressed) I'm not gonna say whether or not Erin was innocent of anything awful or questionable. But I will say anyone that brought this topic up and shared this mentality that if you age a character up for NSFW purpose means you are a disgraceful degenerate is extremely irresponsible and I honestly hope you look back on how terribly you did this and should apologize to your audience for the massive amounts of confusion you've caused them.
I understand the desire to want people to do good, I really do. But demolishing people's rights to draw what they wish isn't gonna purify the world 100% Its as Mal said. SOMEONE is going to use ANY excuse to do bad things. If it's not fan art it's gonna be something else. The best you can do for online cases is be aware of who you're speaking to. NOT CALL THEM A PEEDBEAR JUST BECAUSE YOU FIND A CERTAIN PIECE OF FAN ART UNCOMFORTABLE!
ANOTHER frustration I want to bring up is HOW ON EARTH did ANYONE get pass the 18+ wall on Erin's Patreon!? WHO paid to expose those drawings to these Commentary Channels and WHY are these channels showing these pieces and even STATING the location of where to FIND these pieces to their MINOR AUDIENCE!?
*Breathes!* I'm sorry for my rage there but like, that was highly irresponsible on their part. Censored or not, you STILL revealed the location of where these artworks that were intended for a more mature audience can be found. It doesn't matter if they say they don't think the artist is a P-word. Because they've placed the mentality that these artworks should be deleted onto their minor audience, obviously their gonna feel like they need to do something about it because their "Trusted TH-camr" said so.
Cutting that part short, I also wanna bring up the changing the characters physically thing. I think it's pretty dumb for people to harp on how "The characters don't look physically different" sure, if they were in their same height still then yeah, you have a point. But not everyone is going to look exaggeratingly different from when they were 15. If you reach the age of 20 then I suggest looking back on your 15 year old self and try to see if you can find a massively exaggerated difference. Your still gonna have certain aspects of yourself people will recognize you for, such as your nose, eyes or facial structures. And lets face facts here, not everyone likes facial hair. I'm sorry, this isn't to offend anyone whom likes or wants facial hair but if I'm being honest, I cannot see my childhood crush Joey Wheeler from Yu-Gi-Oh with facial hair or exaggerated wrinkles.
Regardless if you are an adult or not you are still gonna keep aspects of yourself people will recognize you for. Heck, I sadly still look 15 despite being in my 20s and its SO ANNOYING when someone asks me what school I go to or don't take me seriously because of how I look. It's a curse and a blessing depending on the person. (I also hate my old classmates recognizing me and then patting me on the head.)
What I'm basically saying is, it's gonna look jarring giving characters certain features. That's why for me personally, information of the character for this specific AU (Alternate Universe) is MORE of an importance than character design. Yeah, character design is still pretty important but it can be jarring for the artist. Therefore it's best to explain as well the background of said character and establish what your universe is.
And now the most IMPORTANT part. As artists, they have DONE THEIR PART to PUT a mature filter on their drawing because it was NEVER intended for anyone whom was a minor. Sure, teenagers or younger teens are STILL gonna find it anyway but this doesn't change the fact the artworks were NEVER meant for them. Please stop expecting us artists to babysit kids. That's on their ACTUAL parents. Or in this case a RESPONSIBLE adult. OR a chat admin can boot them out or whomever owns whatever social media platform their on. Just because NSFW is not something you can understand at the time nor will ever understand doesn't mean you have the right to label someone something that can DESTROY their LIVES!
We just wanna enjoy these characters we loved as kids or even new ones now because of their personalities or exaggerated features. Your discomfort while understandable isn't anyone's problem. If someone was in danger you can bet someone with a common sense will do something about it, but if it's just you going "EW" on fan art then please don't look at it and leave. It's okay if you feel uncomfortable. Just block, dislike, delete a certain tag, whatever. JUST DON'T label someone as something they are not when you don't know them. Seriously, when I've argued with people using the same excuses brought up in this video, after a while they go completely quiet cause they no longer have anything left to argue. THAT is how easy it is to tear apart this mentality. Sorry if this comment was super long or IS super long but gotta clear the air out here. Just relieved someone finally said something about this matter.
My hand died typing all this. Ow!
Get that hand an ice pack my guy. 👍
Holy cheese and crackers, literally (and I mean literally) everything said in this comment summarizes how I also felt this whole time, especially the first paragraph, the Streamline thing, and the aging up part.
Thank you for bringing your voice/words here. This actually made feel better about myself as a human being.
@@mysryuza You're welcome ^ ^ I wanted to originally air this out on her video, but considering Streamline's fans are not only minors but they are very unreasonable. I don't mean this in a rude way but talking to them is like talking to a wall with a couple of arguments being repeated and eventually when they know they have nothing left to argue they shut up and move on to someone else.
Plus, I did comment there and Stream STILL hasn't replied to the comments that have very good points and she's been ignoring this whole mess for a while now. She may not have started this but she sure as heck made a bigger mess than what Harley or Dreary did. At least those two only made one video of the Erin Clover situation. I know I'm coming off angry but who wouldn't when some TH-camr/"Commentary channel" brainwashed their minor and easily impressionable audience with a topic they can't understand nor be consistent about and putting a life-destroying label on artists just because they feel fictional characters should have rights. I don't think Stream is a bad person, but she sure as heck was careless during all this. She may not be obligated to reply but you'd think someone would at least acknowledge the CSA victims that came out in her comment section saying how comparing their experience to fictional characters is offensive. Anyway, sorry for a long butt of a reply. Guess I hadn't completely aired out all my frustrations yet.
*Slow Clap* Wonderfully done!! Agreed.
How to win the "god-tier" mode by convincing Mali shes wrong
Step one. comment "No"
Step two. tell her to delete and change the video because you said "No"
Step 3. your done. You are now god.
all jokes aside that was interesting take. I'm tried of people throwing around serious labels
I have no power against someone that says no, this is true. U~U
For me I'm fine with it and yeah that includes NSFW. Where it's a bit "Oh no" is when a small child is aged up for it. Like let's say a five year old. But I don't think it's a big deal to age up a 16 year old for NSFW.
And I so appreciate you talking about how you shouldn't witch-hunt or judge/morally bash people for doing things you don't like.
Couldn't agree more. We have to remember that they're nothing more than drawings and as emotionally attacted as we may be to them, at the end of they day, it is still just a drawing. They do still represent something and it's totally fine to be creeped out and even genuinely horrorified, but witch hunts for NSFW of aged up characters protects no one and only hurts real people.
Even still, there's some art that I side-eye the artist pretty hard.
Its all fiction in the end. Never in history has stopping people from making fiction been a good idea. Just slap a content warning on it if need be and move on.
Exactly no ones a kid forever.
I absolutely agree
I disagree with the “I don’t think it’s a big deal to age up a 16 year old for nsfw” people shouldn’t be aging up minor characters just so they can use them in NSFW situations
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.
I personally agree with and hold this same view so I have nothing to really debate about it.
Just be kind to one another....if a person does actual aging up that isn't some "They're 18+ because I say so" bullshit, please if it makes you uncomfortable then disengage from them and move on....don't call them pedos....don't try and call their morality into question (because children that is silly....aged up characters ARE adults, your speculation of the artist's motivations are just that...speculations)
Cp exists....I assure you, people who actually do proper age ups aren't doing so because they prey on children
I can't understand the fact people think ped(0)s would want fictional minors
@@GingerSadClaps69 oh well they do. maps have been advocating for fictional cp for ageeesss. especially in the uk, where it’s illegal, they’re advocating for it.
@@GingerSadClaps69 why woudn't they? There fictional therefore its legal. Ped*s won't get caught if its fiction. I mean it makes sense to me atleast.
Sorry for commenting a second time but I find it funny that despite what was said in the video, people still say "As long as it's not for NSFW"
I'm sorry, but as a fanfic writer let me give my perspective. I like to write romantic and dark stuff. This isn't to say I like kids. =/ I just make an alternate storyline having nothing to do with canon for said character and its mature. Is it weird for others? Yeah, I get why.
But that is your own personal feelings and it has nothing to do with other people. Stop reading the title of this video when the video already answered everything. Kindly WATCH the ENTIRE VIDEO!
Cause it feels like the people saying this are just reading the title, immediately commenting and just left it at that without learning a gosh damn thing.
One more thing, if you don't want your view of the character corrupted or you feel uncomfortable, then don't look at these artworks, fics or whatever.
Just enjoy what you like without it being corrupted.
I also wanna give my perspective as a fic writer previously.
I like to imagine scenarios for certain characters but obviously them being older. For example; Zombie apocalypse setting, two headcanon gay characters in said Zombie setting and while they face hardships through the apocalyptic world they live in they eventually form a relationship after much development. Then BOOM they trust each other enough to do bed on bed things. Consent tis key.
I may do the naughty in my stories but I develop it personally til both characters trust each other.
So there, perspective from an old fanfic writer.
Okay, off topic here but I don’t get why you would write an already existing character into an AU completely different setting and change their personality so much to the point they’re not even the same character anymore when you can just make an OC. Could you shed some light onto that?
@@hyjinx1889 probably because they felt like it? some fanfictions takes place in another setting or different perspective such as Mafia au, coffee shop au and etc. But if the characters seems out of place then thats their perspective of the character, people make fanfictions to make stories of what could have happen like what ifs such as what if this character had children or what if narutos parents didnt die. Some just use an already existing character because its their comfort character and heck i seen so many fanfictions on wattpad that are so cringy and the character isnt acting the same in the anime. i hope this answers your question btw im not a fanfiction writer
@@hyjinx1889 Uhhh....there's nothing to shed. ._. Simple answer is, because we can and want to.
When people write stories of such scenarios one has to figure out how this character's personality is gonna be in this scenario. It's interestingband comforting for us rather than some OC made to resemble said character that we love.
There's no reasons why it needs to be called into question. We want to and that's it.
@@hyjinx1889 There are people that change characters beyond all recognition, and their portrayal is so far off you wonder why they didn't make a fan character, but that really has nothing to do with the age of said character. It happens whether or not they are adults, whether or not they're aged up, whether or not they're genderbent, etcetera. To answer the reason as to why; for one, they could just be unimaginative, designing a character from scratch is hard work, and if your character ends up looking like an orange Sonic, you might as well just use Sonic. Actually, that's two; if they created a 'new' character without enough significant changes, everyone would complain about how it's just a rip off.
Another point is, that a _good_ writer _won't_ change their personality, Bubbles will still be cheery, Buttercup will still be angsty, and Blossom will still be smart/bossy; they'll just act more mature. Such as not literally going to kindergarten to color with crayons. Actually, Bubbles might still like coloring with crayons because of her personality, but a good artist would have her coloring a more complex, adult coloring book design. No, not _that_ kind of 'adult,' the kind that just has more lines or something... it's a thing.
@@notinuse90 yeah, i spent a lot more time reading fanfiction since my last reply, and I definitely understand it better. It’s fun thinking about how characters would react in a different universe, or who they might be like if something else happened instead. However, I still feel like people alter the original characters to such a degree that you don’t even recognize them from their source material. Not that that’s a bad thing, I think some fanfiction AU’s are so well written that they could be entire books, if they weren’t based on an already existing character from a franchise. It just feels like wasted potential for something original. Of course, most fanfic author’s are writing for fun, and that’s completely fine.
ive seen ppl simping for aged up versions of a child character and that still creeps me out even tho its “legal”. bc its kind of reminds me of situations in real life where older people/adults who have watched someone grow up as a kid to adult and start a relationship with them when they are both adults. It still seems SUPER weird and creepy to me. esp in the case of woody allen where he was literally marrying his adopted daughter he RAISED.
HE DID WHAT
Excuse me WHAt 😃🔫
Reality is different though since these characters live short/unrealistic lives while actually watching somebody grow up is a lot more in depth since it's REAL and spans years upon years of interaction and human development. Seeing a young character turn into an adult is 100% not the same as actual human relationships, in fact it's concerning people think that it's a good comparison since one isn't real and they should be able to discern the difference in these vastly different situations...
i saw people call an aged up, adult version, of Asuka Soryu Langley "mommy" today and it made me so uncomfortable. In canon, shes fourteen.
@@chillfactory9000 Bruh I grew a crush on Hiccup in HTTYD 2 and onwards but shit he was an adult in that movie.
People legitimately simp over aged up versions of characters who aren’t even an adult in canon?!!! Ew
As a teen growing up in a fandom space, I fucked up a lot. Some things I wish I didn't do and I really wish I had gone to adults sooner. I thought I knew better, and I feel like a lot of people don't remember that kids are so focused that they think they can handle anything without realizing that these things will haunt them. Aging up characters isn't terrible, in fact, most of the time aging them up and changing it from teens in adult situations makes it better. It isn't easy to see the sexualizing of teens, and that's really what affects people. It won't change, but I agree that it really should be pointed at the people creating it, than the fans that aren't old enough to understand yet most of the time.
There's a lot to unpack with a topic like this. I hope the comment section stays civil.
I would hope so too :T
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
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!
I find it crazy how so many people would attack and harass a small fanartist like Erin Clover for drawing NSFW of an aged up Bakugou BEHIND an 18+ pay wall on Patreon, yet those same people would turn a blind eye to the creator of Dragon Maid, a super popular mainstream anime that blatantly sexualizes characters who look and act like literal TODDLERS. Kids are far more likely to see the actual anime Dragon Maid than they are to find the NSFW art that Erin Clover drew, and Dragon Maid DEFINATELY has a worse impact in our society than Erin Clover, given that that anime normalizes pedophilia and lolicon behavior and Erin Clover just wants to ship her OC with Bakugou
I swear the Erin Clover drama is so frickin pointless and stupid and people will just attack any one small creator for doing something they don't like just because they are able to, and Streamline Workshop definitely didn't help with the pointless drama by telling her large child audience about it, which will definately earn Erin Clover more harrassment than if she just ignored it. Again, source material always impacts the audience more than the fandom creations surrounding it, and attacking one small creator over the works they made does not help in the slightest.
So thank you for being the only reasonable content creator who brought this issue up in a mature and responsible way. I appreciate people like that :3
The thing is with miss koboyashi dragon maid, it has loli characters and and that is a topic that not many people like to talk about, a loli is a short and petite anime girl (regardless of age) people do that to characters just for character design, not to be p3d0philic or to be sexual.... The characters there are given ages for both human form and dragon form, if you don't like it because it has loli characters, that's fine.... But do remember its character design, just like uzaki chan... People thought she was a child and a boy
Good talk😂👍
I get it. And also she drew herself older for happiness.
@@Candy_Flower Except, uh... One of the sexualized characters in dragon maid, Kanna, is a literal child in design, vibes, age, character. She looks like a kid, acts like a kid, is a kid according to dragon standards, goes to human elementary school with other kids... It doesn't matter if she's AcTuAlLy A 1o0o YeAr oLd DrAgOn, if a 1000 is still a child in dragon terms. She's not just a "petite anime character". By all definitions she's a kid.
And even ignoring that fact... One of her human classmates, again, a child by any and all definitions, without even the 1000 year old dragon excuse, is sexualized by being the one sexualizing Kanna the most.
Now, I don't really care. It's fiction, she's not real. But you have to admit people aren't wrong to think it's weird to sexualize a fictional 8 yearold.
@@MsLilly200 yeah i'm with you on that part + i'm glad you don't apply fiction to reality, and i'm not into 8yr old lolis, but people keep forgetting that throwing words like pdfile around (because people like lolis or short anime girls) is watering down the term p3d0 and it drives me mad. LIKE WTF!?💀
@@Candy_Flower Oh yeah, I definitely hate that people do that. Ped0 is SUCH a strong word. I really hate that people are using the term for something that's not at all real.
Like, sexualising a fake 8 year old anime girl is pretty gross imo, but it's nowhere near the same level as actual cp.
Like, the only time that word should be used for drawings, if it's like, super realistic depictions of kids. And/Or drawings based on real kids. Like, celebrity kids or whatever.
It's really kinda making the term feel less than it actually is imo. Like crying wolf.
If I see someone screaming about ped0s online these days I my first though will be that it's just someone drawing risque 15 year old anime characters or something. Instead of you know, actual ped0 stuff.
And that's really shitty. (Also people apparently actually report this stuff, to like, official anti cp places, which takes resources away from real children being harmed.)
Tbh I'd RATHER someone age a character up to sexualize them rather than sexualizing a character that's a literal child
Thank you Mali for being level headed. I've been waiting for this conversation to really be responded to
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 TH-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.
This just reminds me of that one time I was called a pedophile at age 17 because I liked 16-year-old characters.... Jesus that was a fucking awful time
I only age up characters so they're old enough to do cocaine because I get to make a joke, and not because I can sexualize them
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
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
What are your thoughts about aging up characters for the sole purpose of shipping them with another character which is an adult, usually just to 18 despite the still very large age gap? This is something I've always found super icky, so I've always avoided them, but I'm curious to hear your opinion since you didn't cover it in this video
Sorta hard to say on a personal level.
Obviously they’d both be adults so that’s fine in a legal sense, but then you have questions about their relationship to one another.
Are they friends, mentor and student, have some influence on their young life? Stuff like that can change the way a relationship feels and if its the sort of thing I’d side eye or not.
As a general rule I wouldn’t see anything morally abhorrent about that sort of age gap provided it wasn’t a case of something along the lines of grooming. But even when I say that I can see a situation where someone is writing a story about that specific dynamic and I dont believe the mere existence of something bad in media is a problem in and of itself. It usually comes down to framing and intent.
For an example that recently cropped up in the comments here, Ceil (aged up of course) and Sebastian from black butler would be something I find questionable but even then I can see a hypothetical story where it works as an examination of codependency, antisocial behaviours, abuse of power and the messiness of feelings. So even in that I can see potential value.
Unfortunately the simple answer is ‘it depends’ case by case and all that.
And once again I want to emphasise that even if I or anyone else finds something uncomfortable it doesn’t inherently make it bad, so if you feel uncomfortable with age gap stories or stories where a character was aged up to be with an older character that’s completely valid and you’re within your right to dislike and avoid it.
Hope that ramble was helpful to you. ♥️
@@MaliMalware Follow ups to this based on a very specific ship I ranted on a bit too much in another comment (we're just gonna simplify the context a lot here) since I'm just kinda curious what you think:
What if one character is a minor and the other one is age ambiguous with some fans interpreting them as the equivalent to late teen and others viewing them as a young/immature adult?
Also, what if the characters aren't the same species and thus don't mature at the same rate, like with a human and an elf, causing one character to grow up way faster than the other? This can be a case of two characters starting at the same relative maturity level but becoming unbalanced due to the age up or the minor-in-canon character being of the race that ages up faster, catching the adult at the exact same maturity level if not going ahead of them.
@Dennise Hernandez I think that its better, cause if you age the adult down, then it allows you to explore their relationship as equals. I guess the relationship being unbalanced, with one character holding power over the other is my biggest iffyness with the whole aging up thing
@Dennise Hernandez That sounds worse.
FINALLY someone who's anti-purity culture in fandom. Adults like adult things and like to do adult stuff. Fandoms freak out too much about adult content and don't give it nearly enough nuance.
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
Having a huge family tree of ocs, I don't understand how aging up a character is problematic. Freezing a character at a specific age feels restricting...I love delving into their past or exploring their futures and I know I'm not the only one. Characters in TV shows have flashbacks or flash fowards.
Granted, I don't really use aging up to explore really explicit things...but if you're aging up characters, you should be able to explore the full realm of adulthood experiences.
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
I thought I was going to be called out, but I was not...
*sigh of relief*
In all seriousness, I'm glad that I'm not the only person who considered or actually did aged-up characters for fan-works....as a 21 year old. I do it mainly for the more mature themes, like violence or trauma. But sexual themes can come with the territory and I am no stranger to shipping.
My main concern was when someone like YanDev 'tried to make his characters "18 and older", but made it bloody obvious they weren’t. He was just trying to avoid backlash and failed miserably. It's one of the main reasons I'm no longer part of that fandom...
I'm actually surprised you didn't mention Steven Universe:Future. That's a great example of creators themselves aging up the characters and doing it very well for the far more adult themes and topics the show addresses.
Anyways, great video Mal! It does help anyone who might be interested in fan creations and fan-works as a reference point in the case of aging up characters!
I also secretly hope this reaches the creators of the new aged-up Powerpuff Girls movie or series on Netflix, so they can know how to not royally screw up the characters, while still addressing more adult topics with those characters..... Well, one fan can dream at least.
omgg steven universe is a rly great example
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.
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: th-cam.com/video/eixJOq-C78M/w-d-xo.html
I also went through the same thing- I had a favourite character ages 13- onwards, but I'm 23 now. I felt like I had to interact with something I grew up loving differently just because of my age, it was a very strange position to be in and I've never heard anyone else mention it so it was refreshing to hear your perspective on this.
At 16:50 I just realized that Bubbles’ left hand is on her right arm.
Also I have two head cannons about the main characters of Jojo’s bizarre Adventure look like teenagers/young adults is because of Jonathan joestsar, his manliness is so powerful that it causes his descendants’ bodies to age up (pun not intended).
Edit: Nevermind, I see you corrected that mistake.
I'd love to hear the "against" side's of "aging up" when child characters do grow up in to adults in shows, video games and movies and handle adult themes.
Like Rugrats, Harry Potter, Last of Us, heck in Fallout 3 and the SIms, your characters are literally birthed and grow up and do adult things but somehow only in art, it's a controversy.
yup, this has been on my mind
Honestly, as long as you can clearly tell the character is of age I’m totally fine with it. Heck I didn’t even know that was a controversial opinion.
Like instead of aging up characters to 18, why not instead go further and say the character is now 21? The same age one needs to be to legally consume alcohol?
This has changed my perspective and opened up my mind to aging up characters. I still disagree with a small handful of points, but I thank you for opening my mind and showing me my ignorance.
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.
I feel like the people who have problems with those dumb things are people on twitter and tiktok, people on those apps are always searching for drama and a chance to cancel somebody on every single chance they get and it ends up sounding stupid. im glad there are people out there who talk about those things how they actually are without searching for any mistake in the little details
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.
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
My two cents: It matters exponentially less what people do with fictional characters (who are not real, do not have feelings, and cannot be hurt) than what happens with real children. Fandom's conflation of fiction with real-life crimes only serves to hurt real victims and hurt innocent fan creators. Up to 90% of reported material to organizations who look into this kind of abuse is unprosecutable because the characters were fictional and no crime was committed. Fandom wank does not matter when false or misleading reports are taking up time and resources from helping real people. Am I uncomfortable with a lot of fan content out there? Sure. Will I raise an eyebrow at some of it? Yes. But unless a real person is being hurt, blocking the people who make that content and/or not searching for it in the first place is more than enough to curate my fandom experience.
Now when I hear someone on TikTok say oh this person sexualizes minors and is a p9do, I have to wonder are they talking about a actual child or a god damn cartoon character
I mean if someone is against aging up a character, then that means they take their canon age over any age drawn by fans.
But if that's the case... Then even aging a character down wouldn't matter either.
Ergo, if someone drew a character who is normally 65 years old as a 5 year old regardless of the theme. I.e sexual situations, etc.
The site or person against aging them up, would have to approve it since... Canonically they ARE 65 years old.
Personally aging UP a character to allow for more mature themes to occur should be allowed, but aging them down and drawing them in those mature situations should be restricted.
I think aging up characters for NSFW purposes is fine to a certain extent, in my opinion.
Like, if a character was a teen, I get it and that's fair.
Aging up characters that were canonically less than ten years old for the purposes of NSFW works feels a bit... off, to me personally.
But everyone is entitled to their own opinions! My main rule for fan content (mostly fanfic) is "don't like, don't touch". I avoid interacting with anything I feel uncomfortable with and think others should do the same.
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.
You're so brave for being open about disliking a popular fruit, i personally hate strawberries myself and if i tell someone they get confused onto why
this was a really good and nuanced take! i really liked this video.
i started reading and interacting with homestuck when i was 13, the same age as the main cast. i always viewed them as growing with me as the years went on and the story grew more complex. as i did get older, i interacted with NSFW content with these characters (as a teen, viewing them as teens) and never really saw a problem with it; they were the same age as me and each other, so it matched my real life experiences. i'm sure they were depicted as adults, but teen me just saw something weird with looking at adults in that way; purity culture really fucked with my head.
it's a bit similar with my hero academia; i'm only tangentially involved, but really started consuming content when i started university and sort of mentally aged the characters up in my head to make them easier to relate to lol. most fan content i see is uni AUs/similar things like this, where the characters are adults.
a good and impactful story is ideally good and impactful for *everyone*, including adults and including people who have sex.
i believe second argument has a point, if you "age them up" but then barely change them/or keep them in senerios that are mainly centered around children, it just feels off and not appropriate
Honestly I don't see a problem of ageing up characters because it's not harming no one and I find it stupid that people attack others for it
I am a fic writer. I've been in fandom since I was twelve, and was writing fic well before that without knowing it was something others did. I'm also a survivor of CSA and SA (censoring because ah, youtube does love to delete comments). My two cents--since so many people always shout "um, don't talk over CSA survivors" is--anyone who tries to hurt others over this is ridiculous and I think they should go see a therapist. Aging characters up FOR ANY REASON is absolutely okay! I've even seen this go so far as telling actual minors that they're not allowed to be attracted to or have sexual feelings for characters who are literally their age, for godsakes! And I also think this does go for truly problematic content too; if it hadn't been for fic in which a character I loved went through what I went through, I would have never known that what happened to me wasn't normal. The fic being tagged with CSA and r*pe tags are literally the door that helped me realize I'd been hurt in ways there were words for, and that not every child was so terrified of older men or felt like they were going to be treated like I had.
In addition, I am someone who has OCD, and whose partner has OCD relating to purity because of what they went through as a child. When people criticize others online like this for ~problematic~ content like aging characters up or (tagged and researched) extreme topics, they don't realize that they can cause the development of disorders like depression, anxiety, and--yes--OCD. Everyone jokes about OCD, but they've never known the anxiety of wanting to pull your mind out and wash it clean because you're bad and evil and no one should love you. My partner does, and friends of ours do, and it is only through the love and support of one another that they've been able to feel worthy of love. *Your words have consequences*. And those words CAN come with incredibly serious consequences for you as well--because people can sue for emotional distress and damages if they can prove you caused them, and if they attempt unalive or you tell them to attempt unalive, that can have monetary consequences and even jail or prison time.
good lord, why does youtube change if a comment has a like when you edit it a little? regardless, thank you for the like; so many people ask for the opinions of CSA victims on this topic but so few actually acknowledge them.
I have no evidence for this, but I feel like this discourse somehow stems from the real world occurrence of adult men actively waiting for a teenager to "age up" to 18 to become legal, which is definitely creepy and messed up no matter how you look at it, but that some people try to apply this to fandom and it just... doesn't apply, since the characters don't age at all and only look as old or act as sexual as they do as depicted by their creator.
Of course, that isn't illegal. If you're grooming the kid, that's a crime, but if you meet a child, and then meet them again once they're legal; it's still creepy, just not illegal. I make this distinction because if you punish the later, as if it were grooming, then it's basically 'in for a penny, in for a pound.' If they're getting in trouble either way, why not go whole hog and groom the shit outta them? Which, for the record, would be a _very bad_ thing.
@@Wendy_O._Koopa It's immoral I'd say to wait for a child to be "of age" just to have sexual and/or romantic relationships with them, when there are countless of people around your age that would be your type. It's just WORSE if you also groom them in the process.
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.
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 mostly agree with this video, people have favorite characters as kids and when they grow up, they may want to explore how the character may look and behave as if they’d grown up with them, as long as they look and behave like adults I think it’s okay.
When it gets uncomfortable for me is when (like you said) the character looks and behaves exactly like they did when they were a kid, and the artist just says “they’re actually 18 so it’s ok,” then it just feels like a loophole. Also, if a full-grown adult looks at like, a 5-year old character that they didn’t grow up with, and their mind immediately jumps to “hmm, I wonder what this character would look like as an adult in an inappropriate situation,” that’s creepy too.
For me, I like to see aged up characters from my childhood since I grew up but they never did. It's like connected with a long lost friend.
I wish all these types of videos started with a “yes” or “no” so I could know what I was getting myself into LMAOOOOO
I had a friend that was on rule34 all the time, and i mean ALL the time. He use to share the porn he found on it to the group chat, some of them being minors. He always said that they were "Aged-up" or that he "Didn't know" even though he sent a lot of images of TEENAGE robot. Me and my other friend that was in the group chat told him about it, and he said "Well theyre just aged up so its fine".. He called us kink-shamers because we were against his weird ass porn he sent.. Still pisses me off to this day that people like him exist
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.
tbh I'm glad my side was challenged on this. I was strongly against it before but now I understand. Thanks for making this, you brought a lot of valuable stuff to the table that most people are afraid to.
Sad thing is MHA came out when I was a minor and now I'm 20 almost 21 and yeah I "crush" on the older characters but I've seen my age of cosplayers get attacked for age up characters they still have an attachment even if they don't have a "crush" on.
I noticed the new stills, they look great! All in all, great video overall!
I am curious about your take on aging down or focusing on what happened in a canon character's past and having E-For-Everyone romance - as in no smut, but at most something like the "literally rearranging the furniture because we got a new dresser and we're struggling to find a place to put it and it's freaking heavy" for a joke. I genuinely don't have much understanding nor experience when it comes to this kind of stuff, and I'm looking to try to learn more and see what others think of this stuff.
At this time, I am on the "It depends on the context, the author's intentions, and the whole case-by-case shtick" side because of all of my lack of knowing and understanding, especially when there are a myriad of factors.
Some examples of what I was specifically thinking:
Example 1: If canon character A is canonically 30 years old and fanon character B is 21 years old. In this scenario, character A would be aged down to around 21 ~ 23 to just close the age gap. Again, this would be E-For-Everyone romance with no smut.
Example 2: A fanfic centered around in canon and/or fanon character's past and potentially any past relationships that they had say (again E-For-Everyone romance with no smut, but at most a stupid joke like literally rearranging the furniture). An example I have in mind is something like a 50 year old canon character reminiscing about when they and their spouse were in their mid-twenties.
Okay so generally speaking people have little to no issue with ageing down characters at all unless they're doing so for NSFW content which is like the opposite of what's happening here and I would argue that most everyone would have a massive problem with that. Rightly so. Going out of your way to make underage content is a whole other ball game. But aging down characters for story telling purposes not related to NSFW content, well that's just....normal in all media. Happens all the time and there's no issues with it as far as I can tell.
That said I'll briefly address your two examples, if you're ageing a character down for NSFW but they're still an adult then there's still no issue with it.
So Example 1 is completely unproblematic, in particular because you're not even engaging in smut to begin with. So really if anyone took issue with that I'd question what their actual complaint was. At a guess I'd say it would stem from over protective or possessiveness of a character or hating self insert stories to begin with.
Where as Example 2 is more or less just....well story telling. I mean you wouldn't look twice at a character having a flash back or reminiscing on their younger years in any media ever so I see no reason as to why it would be questioned in fanfiction either.
TLDR: Example 1 and 2, completely unproblematic. Ageing down for story telling is normal and fun. Ageing down for smut is fine if they're all still of age. Ageing down to childhood for smut is nasty.
Thank you for coming to my TedTalk
@@MaliMalware Thank you for your insight, it's very much appreciated. I wish that the dramas surrounding fanfiction that have happened in the recent years didn't rear their heads to sow confusion.
‘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 lost a very close friend because I aged up two characters by about three-four years so I could actually ship them..I never drew anything NSFW with them because I grew up with those characters, but they ended up harassing me..
That friend..sucked, to say the least..
When I first got into the vocaloids, I was 13. I instantly fell in love with the Kagamine twins, Rin and Len, and I still love them to this day. I even have figurines of them now! When I was 13, Rin and Len were canonically 14. Now I am 25, and Rin and Len are still 14. I don't care, they're my comfort characters, fuck off.
comfort character and sexualization are two different things. No one cares if you like rin and len as comfort charecters. Thats not the issue.
I think ppl fall in love with the adult personalities and looks given to young characters. So many media producers make teen characters that don't look young and then make them do adult things like risking their lives, saving the world etc.
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.
Also Barbara out here making you sound smart and thats the real tea
I'd rather would like to see an aged up version of a character in NSFW content than a minor.
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?
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"
Personally I enjoy ageing up characters either for pieces of media that I've enjoyed or my own since its fun to brainstorm how their world and story and personalities would change, like I have a story where being an adventurer and fighting to defend the world using magic powers is a paid carrier you can apply for at the age of 19 if you have the proper training beforehand, the main characters for that story are 16 but I enjoy imagining them as in their 20s purely to see how much they'd have grown and how different their story would be, to anyone who outright hates ageing up characters, just remember that it's not always for sexual purposes, no matter the age of the person creating the fan material
I've never seen someone discuss this topic before and I wanna thank you for it. This was a amazing take on the the topic of how aging fictional can be shown in many forms.
Regarding characters over the age of 18 still being in high school, it's still definitely a thing that can happen. My brother was born in late February, and he turned 19 during his senior year of high school. So not a *common* thing by far, but not an impossible one.
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.
As a minor, I personally DGAF. Do whatever the hell you want, they're fictional characters. They can't be hurt. Worry about REAL kids being harmed.
Gen z dosent understand that 🤦🏾♂️
@@valtandvalkyrie8513 Its sad knowing I'm a Gen Z but I understand more than most of Gen Z do
where i draw the line is when they're purposely sexualizing them or putting them in sexual situations
i'm not even gonna mention the fact when they try to age them up just to ship them with an adult while they're 10-14
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.
As someone who actually aged up a few characters for stories, I’m so glad you talked about this! I’ve been nervous about someone being disrespectful about aging up (or aging down) fictional characters, because with my stories they including dark themes and humor (but no inappropriate themes). So, I find it weird having a fictional kid character taking place in activities that a kid would not be doing (yes ik some things show that but that’s not my point). In my case, I’m in between the debate about changing the age of characters but, in some cases it’s ok to age up or down characters but in other scenarios no, don’t do it.
Thank you so much for making this video. I agree with everything you said. I'm so tired of people targeting others without thinking through their actions and immediately think of someone as bad. Very black and white ya know?
Tbh, it did affect me as i started to think that maybe im the bad person this whole time and just making excuses. Im so glad this video came out and explain everything that I've been thinking about and want to share things regarding this topic. The script for this vid is very constructive and flows really well which makes people digest what they're hearing and processing.
Lovely video, keep up the good work!🌸💖