an unusual underage edge case

[reynold_biplane]

Hey there. I've just finished the first chapter of a fanfic based on Dune and decided to post it here. But I see, that the rules regarding underage content are rather strict. I don't know, if my story would pass, so I figured I'd ask first.

Here's the problem:
The character of Paul Atreides is described as being 15 in the book, but in all the movie adaptations he has been depicted by an adult actor. My story isn't specifically based on either. I don't mention age at all. I prefer to leave this decision to the reader. Is that ok or do I have to say outright, that Paul is 19 or whatever?
Furthermore, he gets called boy by another, much older character. That is not to imply, that he is underage. It's just condescension by an elder. He is called a man another time in the story.
So is that ok or too risky?

And while I'm at it, here's a bonus problem for people, who like to speculate about these things:
I'm thinking about writing another story, but haven't even started yet. The main character will be 22 or 23 years old. Here's the thing: The story takes place in the future and the age of consent has been raised to 25. So this could be seen as a way to play around with the underage taboo, while technically staying within the rules. That's not my plan, though (at least I think so, I haven't thought about it too much). The age of consent thing is just a story detail, all the sexy action is about incest and cloning ("selfcest"). What do you think about that one?

 

[Euphony]

Here's the problem:
The character of Paul Atreides is described as being 15 in the book, but in all the movie adaptations he has been depicted by an adult actor. My story isn't specifically based on either. I don't mention age at all. I prefer to leave this decision to the reader. Is that ok or do I have to say outright, that Paul is 19 or whatever?
Furthermore, he gets called boy by another, much older character. That is not to imply, that he is underage. It's just condescension by an elder. He is called a man another time in the story.
So is that ok or too risky?

Underage characters in their Universe even aged up (Harry Potter as an adult) run into troubles so if L is at all familiar with the Dune universe and feels the character is portrayed as young/youthful as to be titlating to those into underaged material, it will be rejected.

I wouldn't lean on Hollywood portrayals, edge cases, various interpretations made by others writing the universe, etc.

Remove much of the possibility of troubles by stating he is an adult. It doesn't have to be "said outright." We all work within this same framework and have found many more nuanced ways to show a character is an adult than the draconian "Bob was 18 years of age" hammering so many claim is forced on them.

Few would take issue if you age Paul accordingly to fit the site. Readers and writers all know the deal and those who would find it ruinous to their experience have many other outlets to find what they need.

 

[Euphony]

And while I'm at it, here's a bonus problem for people, who like to speculate about these things:
I'm thinking about writing another story, but haven't even started yet. The main character will be 22 or 23 years old. Here's the thing: The story takes place in the future and the age of consent has been raised to 25. So this could be seen as a way to play around with the underage taboo, while technically staying within the rules. That's not my plan, though (at least I think so, I haven't thought about it too much). The age of consent thing is just a story detail, all the sexy action is about incest and cloning ("selfcest"). What do you think about that one?

There's a lot of dancing around here/negotiating for something that is pretty straight forward.

Fictional universe moralities/norms don't hold much sway in the decision. If you write what appears to be an underage, titillating character in our world as a 90 year old, it's getting bounced.

These sort of ruminations on "where, exactly, the line is" tend towards the problematic. Rarely is there a creative necessity to toe right up to the line as so so so many claim they need to do.

Just write functional adults. There is plenty of immaturity, arrested development, and social calamities to explore with a 20 yo to keep you motivated (if the psychology is your true interest) and the readership engaged.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Hi Reynold, and welcome.

Let's start with the easy one. The age of consent in any country or time period is irrelevant here. For this privately owned site, the minimum age for any sexual or even slightly sexual antics is 18. For your second scenario, a person who is 22 and illegally having sex would be ok here.

The first is a bit tricky. Fanfic looks at how the characters are considered, and you can't age them up. Eg. Nobody really thinks of an adult Harry or Hermione, or a grown up Bart and Lisa. I can't recall Paul's age ever being mentioned in the movie(s), so I think you may need to PM Laurel (conversations button, top right) and ask for clarification.

- Just noticed Euphony's post. I agree to a point, but to play safe, I'd ask. Remember, "To save one from a mistake is a gift of paradise."

Good luck

 

[JaxRhapsody]

You can't age them up, nor can you rationalize it. Take the shit to AO³ or FFN, like I do. No dancing around rules over there- not AO³ anyway.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Just write functional adults. There is plenty of immaturity, arrested development, and social calamities to explore with a 20 yo to keep you motivated (if the psychology is your true interest) and the readership engaged.

This, every time. Do this, and your problems are left in the schoolyard, where they belong.

 

[TheArsonist]

The character of Paul Atreides is described as being 15 in the book, but in all the movie adaptations he has been depicted by an adult actor.

Underage characters in their Universe even aged up (Harry Potter as an adult) run into troubles so if L is at all familiar with the Dune universe and feels the character is portrayed as young/youthful as to be titlating to those into underaged material, it will be rejected.

This case is a bit different since Dune takes place over three years, and Paul is 18 for the last third of the book (and in his thirties in Dune Messiah)—unlike Harry Potter, the adult version of the character is not just a brief epilogue, but a major part of the story. So I would assume fan fiction with him would be OK, if set in one of the later time periods.

Presumably the rule against aging up underage characters would still apply if the story takes place in (an alternate version of) the first part of the book—at least if it's not so different as to render the question moot.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

This case is a bit different since Dune takes place over three years, and Paul is 18 for the last third of the book (and in his thirties in Dune Messiah)—unlike Harry Potter, the adult version of the character is not just a brief epilogue, but a major part of the story. So I would assume fan fiction with him would be OK, if set in one of the later time periods.

Presumably the rule against aging up underage characters would still apply if the story takes place in (an alternate version of) the first part of the book—at least if it's not so different as to render the question moot.

Yeah.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

Here's the problem:
The character of Paul Atreides is described as being 15 in the book, but in all the movie adaptations he has been depicted by an adult actor.

I'm reminded of a quote:

"Ah the nineties; where all the high school kids are in their thirties."

 

[JaxRhapsody]

I also wanna add that she takes the under 18 rule absolutely seriously, to the point other against rules things are more likely to slide by. Even if even looks like an under 18 character, she sends it back- most of my send backs tend to be this, since I write a lot of college/20yr old characters, and normally no other reason. Just to push this; we were having a convo about mentally dissabled people about a year or two ago and I decided to write something. I wrote it clearly and obviously that not even the most troglodyte reader would think otherwise, that it's a mom/son incest story, with blantant backstory, but "mind of a teen" or whatever got it rejected, even though she was in her 40s.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

I don't know how useful this will be, because it's sort of the opposite of your problem, but I'll point it out regardless.

I wrote an Alternate Universe where highschool begins at 18 and ends at 21. I wanted to capture the drama of highschool sex without any of the ickkiness of underage writing.

Normal highschool sex is totally allowed (if the characters are clearly stated to be 18 [or they are seniors]) but I needed the power dynamic between a freshman and an upperclassman, so I just changed the age when school begins.

I never heard a peep of complaints from any readers or (most importantly) from Laurel.

Make your characters 18+ and stick them in whatever wacky world you want. I doubt you'll have an issue.

(Remember, adding "ALL CHARACTERS IN THIS STORY ARE 18+" in the notes to the editor and in the open Author's note is not a guaranteed ace-in-the-hole, but it goes a long way to smoothing things over)

 

[djrip]

You can't age them up, nor can you rationalize it. Take the shit to AO³ or FFN, like I do. No dancing around rules over there- not AO³ anyway.

But in sequels Paul is older.
Ah, the dangers of replying before finishing the thread...

 

[alohadave]

But in sequels Paul is older.
Ah, the dangers of replying before finishing the thread...

This came up a while ago with Peter Pan. An author here (sorry, I don't remember who) asked Laurel if using naturally aged characters in later works would be kosher. The response was no.

 

[TheArsonist]

This came up a while ago with Peter Pan. An author here (sorry, I don't remember who) asked Laurel if using naturally aged characters in later works would be kosher. The response was no.

I still don't think that's really the same thing, since Peter Pan is essentially a story about children (the brief epilogue with Wendy as an adult notwithstanding), and Peter himself is canonically the boy who never grows up, while Dune is a story about a character who is a teenage boy at the beginning but then a grown man for much of the narrative. And it's also different since the Peter Pan stories where the characters are adults (such as Hook) are later "fan fiction" by other writers, while the life of Paul Atreides from age 15 to death is part of one story written by Frank Herbert and told in the "official" series of books.

To take another example, I don't think any reasonable person would seriously object to erotic fanfiction about Tarzan just because roughly half of Tarzan of the Apes is about his boyhood—as long as the story doesn't suggest that it takes place when he's underage. If that were the case, where do you draw the line? Any story that has tiny little bit from the characters' childhood is now off-limits?

The intent of the rule seems obviously to be to stop people from just saying "In this version of the story they're all 18+ (*wink*)," or stories that trade heavily on readers' associations with the parts of the original story where the characters are underage. (So, for example, although Dorothy ages up to an adult in later Oz sequels by original author Frank L. Baum, it's the young girl from The (Wonderful) Wizard of Oz everyone remembers.)

 

[djrip]

This came up a while ago with Peter Pan. An author here (sorry, I don't remember who) asked Laurel if using naturally aged characters in later works would be kosher. The response was no.

Well that's weird, if you can't use a character that was ever underage, even if they were an adult in other parts or sequels. Maybe it was just that Peter Pan is so iconically a child.

 

[MillieDynamite]

And yet, he was an adult the first time he met Windy because he'd been 12 for so many, many years. How strange is that?

Well that's weird, if you can't use a character that was ever underage, even if they were an adult in other parts or sequels. Maybe it was just that Peter Pan is so iconically a child.

 

[djrip]

And yet, he was an adult the first time he met Windy because he'd been 12 for so many, many years. How strange is that?

Like Armand; can we write about thousand year old child vampires? Probably not.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I loved Claudia, but she didn't last long enough to have even gotten much past puberty in the story.

Like Armand; can we write about thousand year old child vampires? Probably not.

 

[reynold_biplane]

Thanks for all the quick advice. I will think about it a bit. Maybe I will have to make some small changes.

Underage characters in their Universe even aged up (Harry Potter as an adult) run into troubles so if L is at all familiar with the Dune universe and feels the character is portrayed as young/youthful as to be titlating to those into underaged material, it will be rejected.

That shouldn't be much of a problem then. Unlike in Harry Potter for example, Paul Atreides acts pretty much like an adult in the original already and the fact he is underage is barely noticeable to the reader, bar a few mentions of his age. And I don't think I changed his character significantly.
Then again, my fanfic will be mostly about mother-son incest (I should have mentioned that in the beginning) and I think that will make any association with Paul possibly being underage weigh even more heavily.

Just write functional adults. There is plenty of immaturity, arrested development, and social calamities to explore with a 20 yo to keep you motivated (if the psychology is your true interest) and the readership engaged.

That's good advice. I will keep that in mind, when I start writing that story. Like I said, I'm not even entirely sure, where it will go. The possible underage taboo aspect is something that only occured to me later and I have no intention of turning the focus onto that.

You can't age them up, nor can you rationalize it. Take the shit to AO³ or FFN, like I do. No dancing around rules over there- not AO³ anyway.

That might be the best course of action. It's just that I don't usually read fanfic myself, so I am unfamiliar with these sites and I wanted to try here first.

This case is a bit different since Dune takes place over three years, and Paul is 18 for the last third of the book (and in his thirties in Dune Messiah)—unlike Harry Potter, the adult version of the character is not just a brief epilogue, but a major part of the story. So I would assume fan fiction with him would be OK, if set in one of the later time periods.

You could be right about that one, but it doesn't apply to my story. It has roughly the same starting point as the original Dune and will follow the events of that relatively closely.

 

[TheArsonist]

You could be right about that one, but it doesn't apply to my story. It has roughly the same starting point as the original Dune and will follow the events of that relatively closely.

Yeah, then I would think that's squarely against the policy. You're taking scenes where the character is 15 in the original and aging him up. It doesn't matter that he's mature for his age. (Which I think is debatable in any case: his inner monologue is noticeably childish in this part of the book, and he's frequently acting like a child and being treated as a child by other characters. If anything I would say Frank Herbert is writing him younger than his stated age. I first read Dune when I was younger than Paul is at the beginning of the book, and remember that I thought him ridiculously immature in the early chapters.)

 

[djrip]

Yeah, then I would think that's squarely against the policy. You're taking scenes where the character is 15 in the original and aging him up. It doesn't matter that he's mature for his age. (Which I think is debatable in any case: his inner monologue is noticeably childish in this part of the book, and he's frequently acting like a child and being treated as a child by other characters. If anything I would say Frank Herbert is writing him younger than his stated age. I first read Dune when I was younger than Paul is at the beginning of the book, and remember that I thought him ridiculously immature in the early chapters.)

Did you foil your own assassination at 15?

 

[AchtungNight]

Speaking of Dune movies and former child actors who have done great in them, I would love it if Alicia Witt would revisit her old character or the films in general. Maybe that’s just me.

On topic, I back everyone else’s advice here. Don’t take a chance and keep your characters over 18. If there’s an age gap (like say, a May December thing), call attention briefly to it but let the attraction proceed regardless, not because of it. The first timer exploring her bisexuality in my story Passion 3 got with an older woman looking for a mentor to give her advice, not expecting sex. Turned out there was attraction, so she took advantage and let herself be taught with firsthand experience. Then she had to separate herself from her mentor to broaden her horizons as a swinger. The 10+ year age gap between 2 leads in The Rendezvous concentrated more on the younger woman’s greater amount of surprising experience and willingness to indulge vs the older woman’s lack of experience and denial of her attraction. The age gap is there, but other character dynamics are more important. I also had to bring in an unsure swinger resuming her lifestyle and a dedicated one trying to slow hers down due to ongoing miscommunication issues to further complicate The Rendezvous. Sadly, life separated my leads after the story was done. But again, the age gap was there but it wasn’t eroticized. The characters in the end decided to ignore it and have fun with each other while they could. IMO the characters in your story should ultimately do the same. Good luck.

 

[TheArsonist]

Did you foil your own assassination at 15?

Do you remember why Paul was in the bedroom to be assassinated in the first place (in the book)? Dr. Yueh sent him to bed because he was getting overtired and overexcited about all the unfamiliar things in their new home.

Anyway, Frank Herbert eases up on the infantilizing once they get to Arrakis.

 

[Bamagan]

Paul starts out kind of like one of those kids that graduate college at age 12. Analytically brilliant, but inexperienced socially and with no concept of what his peer group is. He spends almost all his time with trainers and teachers and minders rather than other youths, so he doesn't have more than an intellectual understanding of what childhood is to most people. None of the adults can treat him as quite an equal, yet they're all servants of his father so they have to be subservient to him as well, at least to a degree. No wonder his maturity level seems all over the place.

 

[reynold_biplane]

Yeah, then I would think that's squarely against the policy. You're taking scenes where the character is 15 in the original and aging him up. It doesn't matter that he's mature for his age. (Which I think is debatable in any case: his inner monologue is noticeably childish in this part of the book, and he's frequently acting like a child and being treated as a child by other characters. If anything I would say Frank Herbert is writing him younger than his stated age. I first read Dune when I was younger than Paul is at the beginning of the book, and remember that I thought him ridiculously immature in the early chapters.)

Wow. It's interesting how two people can have completely opposite impressions of a character.
To me he always came off as very mature for his age. Maybe that just shows how immature I was at that age.

Paul starts out kind of like one of those kids that graduate college at age 12. Analytically brilliant, but inexperienced socially and with no concept of what his peer group is. He spends almost all his time with trainers and teachers and minders rather than other youths, so he doesn't have more than an intellectual understanding of what childhood is to most people. None of the adults can treat him as quite an equal, yet they're all servants of his father so they have to be subservient to him as well, at least to a degree. No wonder his maturity level seems all over the place.

That's a pretty good description. He is disciplined, he is learned. All his "friends" are adults. But he has little experience beyond anything, that has been taught to him. That sort of character is pretty unfamiliar to us and difficult to put in a box.

So he is mature in some areas and immature in others. The same could be said about many if not most adults. Overall, his emotional stability, discipline and intelligence far outweigh his other characteristics in my opinion.