This can be very iffy territory, and truthfully encompasses a bit of a grey zone on CHYOA, but it’s something I’ve had to think about for a story I’m writing. Are there any authors here who have done this with erotic fanfiction? If so, how much did you address it, if at all beyond the mandatory “all characters are above the age of 18” notice. There’s no shortage of threads and stories on CHYOA that give virtually no contextual indication of their increased age, is this an acceptable way to go about it? The biggest issue i feel are characters who canonically act or look childish, say for example Toph from Avatar:TLA. On the other hand, there are characters whom are represented in fiction as both acting and looking like older teenagers when they aren’t. Keeping to the same theme, Azula from Avatar is a character i wouldn’t have guessed was underaged. As an author, how would you go about writing each character? Would you be inclined to alter the former both physically and personality wise, whilst keeping the latter the same as canon?
Yes, you should make it explicit. Any child characters should be clearly aged-up, physically and mentally, and for teens the big thing is to make it clear that the characters are of age - congratulate them on their birthday, give them pubic hair and breasts, make it clear that they're adults. You don't have to radically alter the teenager character's appearances unless you want to - there's no reason why Azula should suddenly grow J-cup breasts when she hits puberty unless that's your specific kink - but childlike appearances should generally go away. They can still be emotionally immature, but there should be no doubts in the reader's mind that they are physically mature and at or over the agent of consent.
You are absolutely required to make it clear that all characters that are canonically underage appear in the fanfic as adults. The fanfic note does achieve this, but you must also honour the rest of that section of rule 1: This means that it is against the rules to depict any character as having a distinctly childlike appearance or personality. This is because you don't need to actively demonstrate that they're an adult if you have the note; you just need to avoid implying that they're not. For any physical or mental traits you demonstrate the character as having, it should be reasonable that an adult might have those traits. Toph canonically looks and acts childish because she is, in fact, a child in ATLA. In The Legend of Korra, when she is an adult, her appearance and behaviour are reasonable for an adult. You don't need to erase her entire personality, just don't depict her as a child. (Though personally, given that she's so overwhelmingly childlike in the canon, I'm not sure I could see her any differently as a reader... but that's not a rules issue.) To be fair, Azula being canonically 14 doesn't make any sense in the canon in the first place. Even her voice is far too mature; it's more befitting of a woman in her 60's. Other than the fanfic note and external context, I honestly don't think there would be any alteration necessary. So basically I would agree with this: As both an author and a mod.
It's a rather interesting discussion. There are plenty of fanfictions on Chyoa that probably don't go as far as Zeebop suggests. I asked myself the same questions when a while back I started a story about The Dragon Prince, which if I recall correctly is tied at a production level with Avatar. An eighteen years old boy/girl or whatever could be as childish as it can get, age is just a number after all, so I think it would be lame if you had to 'age' every character personaly too. This is more about the bodies and their description, that's what gets really percived like a big no-no. That's why the site is full of unbelievably naive 18yrs old virgins while the trope of the child looking alien/magical race is prohibited. That can come out as a problem, expressively speaking, if you are into full shaved, flat chest petite girls, but the're no need to change every female character into a milf sporting a huge pair of knockers. Just tweak the looks accordingly to their bodytypes, a few more inches of height, one size of bra, an explicit reference to body hair even if shaved, and you should be set. Also forget about those real life exception of people of 30 looking like they are barely 16
If a character's naivety, especially toward sex, is actually unbelievable for an adult, then I would consider that a violation of rule 1.
Go get 'em then! Jokes aside, the naivety being unbelivable is kind of subjective. I find unbelivable all 18yrs old teens in a present day environment that show lack of basic sexual knowledge. But those who like to play around with 'daddy's girl" fantasies would probably beg to differ.
The best way I saw it done is with a Naruto fan faction. I forget which one, here the first thing the author did was a lore change. Making all characters graduate the ninja academy at 18 instead of 12. It's funny if you're a Naruto fan, as Naruto is basically about child soldiers. When it comes to fanfic, I say do this. Instead of constantly stating, "this character is over 18" each time they show up, change the lore at the start. For Avatar, I would just say, "In this world, it took the Aang and friends 6 years to travel between the south and north poles and 7 years for Sozin's comment to return." Set your fanfic after the start in season 2, and you're all good. Just make sure to physically and mentally age up the characters. So yeah, lore and timeline change to me is the best way to age people up in fanfic.
As someone who has many stories of this nature, my rule that I have established is that no character who is known for being a child is permitted. My reasoning is simple. Even if you age up the character, you are still going to be thinking about the character from the show, book, movie, or whatever else. It’s the same as censoring a word when you already know what it is. It has no effect because you already know what the word is. A character being 15/16 is different because by then they at least have done their physical growth for the most part so even if they are aged up, not much will change except their age and maybe a small height difference. That I think is fine. Now since there is the bystander rule, I do allow kids to be aged up ONLY if they are only to be used as witnesses and NOT as victims. I think it’s fair if they are just bystanders and they need to be included in a story for some reason, but anything that actively includes them is a no go for me. That is the approach that I have found works the best with CHYOA rules and my own rules as well.
