I was thinking of writing a chapter where people have suddenly formed into being. If their formed as adults, are they allowed to be in sexual scenes, or does 18 years still need to pass for it to be fine?
In addition to being adults physically and mentally, they need to exist for at least 18 years. If they get teleported from another universe, you can assume that the time has passed unless something contradicting is stated. It is also possible to form characters out of a (biological) "blank" of any kind that has been grown for at least 18 years. (The above applies to that as well.) (Depending on what you want to do exactly, there might be additional ways to make sure they are already 18.)
I guess I’ll clarify my idea. I’m writing a world that is suddenly ushered into existence, with the people believing they have a history that isn’t really true. Based on your response, I assume I can’t write them in a sexual sense until 18 years pass, but I wanna make sure.
Wow, not that I object, but can I have some clarification on this? I mean, it seems unnecessarily strict. Why? Isn't being physically and mentally 18+ enough? What's the possible loophole to expoit here?
I’m assuming they just want to avoid any legal issues. If I had to really come up with a loophole, if written without memories, you could make the case that even adults would be to inherently gullible. In the end I just decided to avoid the hassle and went for it, as it be pretty annoying if it ended up being flagged.
I could see justification if your world was something where the adult (18+) characters were either magically or scientifically created /"ushered into existence" and those characters had the bodies and mental maturity and cognitive capacity of an adult able to consent, even if they hadn't been baked or in a pod for 18 years. In most science-fiction, that's sort of the point, rapid-aging. An example that comes to mind, that sounds similar to OP's general concept, is the 'Doctor Who' episode The Doctor's Daughter. TL;DR version is that the Doctor's DNA is used to create a fully-formed adult soldier in what is believed to be a long-running war. Jenny, the instantly created clone/offspring, has many of the traits of the Doctor, is a fully-formed adult, and has the memories and skills implanted in her of a soldier ready for battle despite coming out of a pod seconds after the Doctor's DNA is copied. While her space-time existence is only minutes/hours long, she appears and functions as an adult (18+). IMO, I could see where a character like Jenny could be fair game for erotic fanfic and honestly, since the actress later became David Tennant (the 10th Doctor)'s wife, I'm sure there's some Father/Daughter/real life spouses DW fanfic out there. Another example would be the clone troopers from the 'Star Wars' universe (prequels, The Clone Wars, and other animated series). Not sure how long they were cooked up for, but it appears less than 18 years per the wiki and as Jango Fett, the base model, didn't appear much older than the clones, it jives. The clones were also fully-formed adult men, trained, and ready for battle... and for the sake of erotic fiction, probably capable of sexy times. Forget Order-66, Order-69... am I right? Some 'No' examples I can think of from movies where the characters are still kids (<18) but in adult bodies (or vice versa) are 'Big' with Tom Hanks, any of the 'Freaky Friday' movies, '17 Again' with Zach Efron, and the newest 'Jumanji' movies where they are high school teens in adult avatar bodies-- though they might be 18, not sure. I think as long as your characters don't have some sort of "oh no" or other moment (even if it's just brief or temporary) where they realize they're only 18-minutes old instead of 18-years old and then have a brain melt where they revert to infant or child-like people, physically and/or mentally, and then still have sex (or have sex before or after this moment), you'd be okay. Basically, if they're insta-adults either by science, magic, or space-magic (Doctor Who or Star Wars examples), keep them adults. BUT... and a very, big juicy but... I don't make the rules, so someone with CHYOA might still say "No".
Don't want to be that asshole who corrects everyone, but young clones do exist and had to be trained before they'd see combat. Boba Fett himself was seen as a child in episode 2, and these kids were seen. And Kamino, the homeworld of the clones, was a training facility for a reason. But as collateral for this worthless information, I do have to agree with your assessment there. As the rules say that each character must have the mental capacity, and body, of someone who is 18 and older, and they do grow up with the mental capacity and body of someone who is 18 years and older, no matter how long they were being cooked up in a vat, then they should, probably, be seen as a mature person. P.S, if you want someone that was shat out and purposely born to be a soldier, go look up who the Death Korps of Krieg are.
@Warden-Yarn15 , I remember young Boba Fett and that screenshot with the young clones, but I was more referring to the clones (seen in battle) as being in adult form despite possibly not having been in existence for the length of time as their perceived physical age. I couldn't find a definitive answer as to their age once they appeared as soldiers in Episode II on, but the line in the wiki says, "They were also designed to age at twice the rate of natural humans, accelerating their growth and making them ready for combat in a decade's time." which made me think they were, time-wise, younger than their appearance to further support the argument. Thus, I assume Rex, who looks 30-40-ish in the animated series, might be 15-20 in "earth" time? Which means the first clones rolled off the shelves into battle might've been 10? This would also explain why Anakin was so quickly okay with killing younglings (apart from his previous murder of Tusken Raider kids). "Meh, I've killed kids before, seen child soldier die... come here you little brat!" All of this just to say, my bad for the lack of clarity.
If I understand the OP, I believe he refers to some kind of simulation world, like a computer-simulated one. I think in this case, if the characters believe they have a vague 18 years existence, even if it is just virtual and the MC who is a real person in the simulation now is not true, it would be ok for rule 1. I have read some CHYOA stories about computer-simulated worlds and they don't even have 18 years disclaimer, they just happen to only have simulated characters that are clearly 18 years old, even if is just simulated years, so I assume those are not a problem. In any case, if you want to be sure, you can explain that the computer-simulated world has been running through 18 virtual years as some sort of startup computer process that for the real world was just seconds or minutes. From a narrative point of view, it won't change anything. The same could be applied to characters that belong to some sort of artificial slave race. It does not matter the narrative that the artificial race requires 1 day or 18 years to have a sexually ready slave if you're story start after the first 18 years of the artificial process has started, because every year there will be fresh new 18 years old slaves ready, so you can write that the artificial beings exist for 18 years before being ready, and even if they have sexual knowledge for day 1 you can write that they have it locked inside their minds but active only once they reach 18 years, without giving any details of how they're living before becoming 18 years old is. Imagine these two stories "I am 18 years old. I live in the year 2220 and today I am finally able to buy a brand new artificial slave girl (or boy). In this era, there are companies who can create cheap slaves in a matter of days like a real 18 years girl (or boy)." "I am 18 years old. I live in the year 2220 and today I am finally able to buy a brand new artificial slave girl (or boy). In this era, there are companies who can create cheap slaves in a matter of days but they grow naturally until they are 18 years old before being ready to be sold." Both introductions allow the continue the story with the same narrative that you want, with the same sex scenes that you want for the slaves. Of course, we can argue that from a logical point of view it would make sense that a corporation that does that will try to reduce the cost by making he process faster and the second one won't make sense to be as cheap as the first but given that this is for a porn story and is important because CHYOA does not want legal problems to just use the second introduction and ignore that contradiction between cheap slaves and 18 years old process required.
This is all wonderful speculation, but we didn't move the disussion much further. To me it's pretty straightforward that whatever is the creation process of a character, if it looks 18+ and mentally mature enough to be 18+, it should be game for sexy situations. That's just my common sense, and yours to apparently, that's why I wanted someone to shed light, maybe gene.sys, on why a magically(?) created character has to live 18 years in the world before being able to engage in sexual activities. I just don't get it.
Sorry, I had connection issues for the last few days, so I couldn't reply earlier. Excerpt from the rules: Age is defined by the time a person has lived. (Time after "birth") So every character needs to be alive for at least 18 years. (In addition to them being physically and mentally adult.) Yes, but you don't have to mention it. Though it will be a problem if the descriptions contradict that they are in existence for at least 18 years or imply that they are in existence for less than 18 years. So if you describe clones and state that they are physically and mentally 18 but have a living time of 9 years, they are still just 9 years old and thus considered underage. (If such details are established in the canon material of a fanfiction work, you need to add the Fanfiction note. That way, we can assume a normal growth process.)
So couldn't I write that, to use OP's idea, that these beings, these characters, are brought into existence and infused with the experience of 18 or more years of life? Wouldn't it be enough to qualify them as 18+ years older? Wouldn't it be that at least their minds are actually 18+ old; while their bodies, the organic matter, just a few moments old, but having anyway the looks of a 18+ old? Whelp, now that I read it back, it sounds awfully contorted. I hope it is understandable enough.
But the thing is that in some sci-fi or fantasy settings the term "in existence for at least 18 years" could be relative because time is relative, no character can be in absolute existence any amount of time because absolute time does not exist. So, the important is if the character is in existence at 18 years from the perspective of the character itself, because for other characters those 18 years could have happened in just minutes, for example in virtual simulations, relativistic travel, or magical worlds connected in which the time passes at different speeds. No, I mean virtual clones that are physically and mentally 18 and from their own perspective they have been living 18 years but from the perspective of the MC those characters were created seconds ago because, for example, one minute in the real life is 50 years inside the simulation.
That would only make them look like and act like an adult. As age is defined by the time a person has lived, that person would still be only a few moments old. Yes. The time must pass for the character. (But not only in his mind!) If a character got created just seconds ago and travels 18 years back in time, lives his life, and then enters the door, they are 18+. If they existed in another dimension for 18 years, they are 18+. Virtual simulations might depend on how it is actually described. Characters in computer games can exist for 18 years in the game's universe and thus are 18+. That won't work. (Btw: Robots without living components who are physically and mentally adults don't need the living time of 18 years.)
It could work, the simulation can have enough computing power to run 50 years in one real-life second. I mean that as a startup process before any real human enters the simulation. For example, imagine that the simulated world use always as a template a virtual version of 1900 and any real human that want to enter the simulation makes in a second the simulation running between 1900 and the year they want to enter. Well, technically this example would count as robots or AIs, but that would apply even if those AIs are not aware that they are not real and believe they are real humans that had a life from birth to that moment? Usually, in simulation worlds settings the premise is that AI characters are not ware that they are not real.
I think gene.sis means it couldn't work from a site regulation standpoint. It still wouldn't be possible to involve such characters in sexual situations. I think if you state this clearly you are good to go.
Basically. Though such things as hopping in and out of a simulation won't necessarily make a character older. If you start a computer program, the computer characters still may have had a life of several years/decades. A robot is made of dead parts and synthetic tissue. If you have an AI in a simulation and it looks and behaves like a human (e.g. it bleeds when you cut it), it is not a robot. It's also not quite target-aimed to find the edge case that toes the line most. Then, some authors might use that idea and modify it slightly to fit their story, and might then break some part of the rules anyway. Most situations are easy to fix by adding or omitting a line or two. Additionally, you usually don't need such detailed mechanics for an erotic story. If your story takes place in a computer game and there is suddenly a twenty-year-old person who comes out of a house, it is obvious that they already had lived for 20 years. Thus, they are already 20 years old. There's no need to explain the mechanics behind it. But if you state that a "twenty-year-old" person got just created, they aren't 20 years old but got just created.
On the contrary, my intention is not to push the limit of the rules to not break them, is to avoid breaking the rules by mistake. That is far from obvious, what is obvious to me is that the computer game has not been running for 20 years. When I run Skyrim and create a new game, the player character is an adult that has been existing since I press New Game a few seconds ago. If that game also has random generated NPCs none of them has been existing a few seconds ago. And for non random NPCs none of them has been existing before the game was launched, just 10 years ago. I don't pretend to write any explanation of the mechanics. As I said I just don't want people to break rules by mistake. No, of course, if I write such a story I wouldn't give that level of detail, I would just write "The MC turn on his computer, started an Ancestor Simulation World program, put on some VR glasses and enter his own simulation to have fun", but if for some reason that could have some implications I didn't realize then it would be better to know it to avoid problems. I wouldn't add to a story unnecessary details that are not relevant to the narrative. That doesn't mean I would write in the story "they just got created". But as I said with the Skyrim example, if I see a story about simulated reallity games, what seems obvious to me in case there is no explanation, that the character were created when the program started so in that case maybe having no explanation could break rule 1 by mistake, even if that is not the intention. In the simulation part I was thinking more about the typical computer-simulated world in which the MC asks some questions to a simulated character that make that character realize he or she is not real, like the new Ryan Reynolds movie. For example, the MC fucks a 35 years old married woman, and when the MC asks her how is her husband she is only able to give the name but she realize she does not know her husband's face because the husband was never part of the simulation.
I have a similar question to the one that's being tossed around here. One of my stories contains a character who actually starts the story by being born (out of, effectively, a vat); but his new body is adult for his species and he's been alive for several hundred years with repeated reincarnations. Does the fact that he's just got a new body disqualify him despite his age?
That's fine as long as there is no contradicting information. E.g. that the character came into existence seconds ago or grew their adult body in minutes. This should be fine. If a 50-year-old phoenix goes up in flames and rises from its ash in a different form five years later, I'd say it is 50 years old. If you state that it is a completely new organism and the character (the character's "soul") gets injected into the body, the character would need to age until maturity before being depicted in an erotic context.
