Comment on Should my character be 21-23?

DomeGuy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

Character age is a slippery, weird thing that’s best to avoid if at all possible.

Take this summer’s Superman as a great counter-example. If it’s set in 2025, and the opening crawl is to be trusted, Clark came to earth in 1995 and started superheroing in 2022. He would have been in preschool when 9/11 happened, in high school for the Sandy Hook massacre, and presumably studying in the fortress of solitude during COVID lockdowns…All of which would have distracted from the story.

In contrast, look at Peter Parker and the Fantastic Four. How much older than Sue is Reed? What year of high school did Spider Man get bit? Heck who’s older – Sue, Johnny, or Peter? None of these are answered in the MCU or consistently in comics, and nobody cares. (And let’s not even contemplate the X-Men or Batman and his Robins…)

So, yeah, a 21 year old superhero dating 30-somethings is fine. But you don’t really need to do more than establish that your character is at least 18/21 to lampshade away any squick from your readers.

TL;DR : Yeah, the age is fine. But you can skip mentioning it at all as a genre staple and nobody will care.

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