Last year I think it was, DA made a list of criteria on how to determine character ages so that you don't break their rule of putting certain characters in certain situations. It said things such as "if a character began as a certain age and the series ends with them above a certain age, you must treat them as the younger age" and "if the character's age is ambiguous and looks like they're a certain young age, treat them as that age". Other places followed suit, but the rules set such an enormous amount of detail up for interpretation that they might as well have said "never post non-rated-E material unless the mods give you explicit permission". I had my art taken down from a site recently because I drew the characters from My Life As A Teenage Robot and someone pointed out Jenny is technically, well, they had a whole episode centered around the concept, so it's not like they hadn't thought of it too.

So in partnering with the person from the other thread, an idea was hatched (a genuine idea, not like a "I'm going to ask deep questions" one since this comes from a real dilemma artists everywhere have run into). Why not just have a thread, supervised by the admins but participated in by everyone here as well as anyone elsewhere (maybe on their behalf, which is why this one time I wouldn't put it in a journal), where people can discuss the ambiguities, technicalities, dissonances, and specifications around the ages of official characters, OC's, personas, and celebrities over time, expanding the ruling process with consideration-based rulings that people of authority can give? Because I really am tired of making characters to show off in different places only for them to be removed based on a technicality because there's no place in the world with a criteria that gets this kind of enforcement right, and a discussion board or "megathread" where this is the purpose could prevent a myriad of instances of collateral damage and can allow this kind of matter to be settled Supreme Court style (which means anyone who this could affect should tune in).

Anyone got any inquiries/stories about accidental removals?

Just to be clear and unambiguous about Side 7's stance on the topic, especially as it pertains to characters in adult-intended material:

By adult status, we mean non-minor. The characters involve cannot be a child, or child-like. By convensional terms, here in the U.S., that means a character would need to be at least 18 years of age. Anything below that potentially constitutes child pornography, which can result in Side 7 being shut down.

On the topic of aging-up or aging-down characters, Side 7 is fine with doing so provided that the sole purpose of doing so isn't to put the character into adult-content situations. For example, if you wanted to age-up Timmy Turner from Fairly OddParents to tell about his adventures as an adult, that's fine. If you wanted to age-up Timmy Turner so you can skirt the rules on consensual age so Timmy can seduce Chloe Carmichael, that's not acceptable.

As of now, this rule hasn't needed to be further defined. But, if a situation develops where a more explicit definition is required, this rule will be updated.

-- BK

Funny thing about that, something akin to this happened the other day to me.

There's a new place called Art Galaxy I've been to. Aside from them only allowing digital art (to which I ask don't we have enough of those... no offense to them, the people in charge there are pretty cool), I also didn't realize what might be considered acceptable to them.

So when I draw, I don't typically think of most things within the line of thinking here. I just think of a concept and think "ooh I should make art of that". The other day I conjured up a crossover scenario between Pucca and Mao Mao Heroes of Pure Heart. It was supposed to be one where Adorabat and Pucca switch places, nothing you would see out of a nefarious gallery or anything, just a multi-angle work.

I then provided one of the editions to Art Galaxy. They came back a day later saying "we have received a report, and although we don't want to ban you like the reporters were begging, we removed the picture for age dissonance", and I was like wut. Apparently Mao Mao is older than me. But then again, Adorabat is young enough to watch the Wiggles (and they're in the same show). And the other two are two years older than Ash Ketchum... despite the fact it's a parody of Grease that uses often-borderline-graphic ninja violence (what are they doin' over there in South Korea).

It may have been the semantics honestly (though some don't have an age except for passing remarks by the creators).

I'm not one to object to authoritative decisions, I am the guest in their abode. It was just an oddly technical surprise is all (plus they chose to not call it a done report when the fact it wasn't a digital work came up). Or so I would think, I don't know. Should I just not draw the Mao Mao characters? Who knows. I know a guy who got in trouble because he drew Scooby with another in-universe dog and Scooby is the only one in the Scooby universe (aside from Scrappy) who passes the Harkness Test, and another one who got in trouble for shipping Shadow with Orbot since Shadow is a life form cloned by Eggman's grandfather, making him technically Eggman's uncle, while Orbot was created by Eggman, making him Eggman's "son" (in the same way C3PO is technically Luke's and Leia's older brother). I can't quite picture it.

With that out of the way, I do have a question after having watched a sci-fi movie. In quantum physics, time slows down for people in motion, right? If you're on a space ship that's approaching the speed of light, it's said time slows down for you, so even though you might go on a trip on a UFO that lasts a few minutes, you might exit your spacecraft only to learn a few decades have passed. Something like this was an overshadowing point in the Buzz Lightyear movie. My question is simple, do we treat the undertoned issue according to a perspective where these physics exist or where they don't?