remember when you were like. 13, and you be like "omg I'm a teenager so I'm PRACTICALLY an adult, why won't the other adults take me seriously?" and then you turned like. 16, even, and realised how 13yos still felt like babies?

A lot of yall STILL do that-

-only you're like, 16-19 and saying "omg this 22yo character is so Grown Up and Mature so they're totally on the same peer level as the other Adults in this series!" and I can tell you, from the perspective of the other side, being near/in your 30s... the gap still feels There

This isn't a serious tweet or anything like that but it IS meant to maybe help some ppl reframe stuff. Like... just. Remember when you totally thought a 16yo was tantamount to a 30~yo in terms of together-ness? And remember how wrong that turned out to be? It keeps happening!

In my experience, in a varied roster of characters, even if an early-20s character and a mid/late-30s character are both adults, they're both at totally different stages in their lives (or, well, probably should be) and their perspectives would be remarkably different.

I don't remember what the point of this thread was, I guess to just try and give some perspective to younger ppl in fandoms with a range of chara ages? That there isn't some level at which all legal adults nod and go "yep, we're all Adults, so we're all on exactly the same page"

obviously this impacts on shipping a bit but also just general friendships? and that the same friendship between a 22yo + a 35yo is going to feel very differently for the 22yo than it does for the 35yo. Remember being 10 and having 15yo friends, thinking you were basically peers?

Then remember being 15 and having 10yo friends and being like "this kid is cool but they're like a baby to me?" That's... what it's like. Forever. I'm sure the older people I work with and consider 'peers' have trouble seeing me as anything other than a rosey-cheeked baby, lol.

I do think the gap narrows proportionately the older you get. I don't think a 60yo & a 50yo would register much of a difference at all, while obv a 20yo and a 10yo are living totally different lives. But most series set their characters in ranges where even a few years matter.

Yes this started with me thinking about some popular ships with large age gaps but it also got me thinking about how the majority of those people are projecting onto the younger half of that couple and that this is just... something you don't Get until you've been there, i guess

Like I said. This isn't a serious thread, this is not a "stop doing this! it's problematic!!" thread at all, I don't think an age gap is the only deciding factor in a relationship but... I just think some ppl would benefit from imagining how it would feel if THEY were the older 1

you can argue for example that a 20yo and a 30yo are "both adults" but I can tell you as the person who is closer to the 30yo than the 20yo, the perspective of the 30yo is SO different to the 20yo's and my closer-to/over-30 peers would likely think that 30yo was Up To Something

just..... remember when the younger kids used to try and hang out with you and act "mature", and sure they might've still been fun to hang around with but they always felt Greener than you and like you'd never *quite* be on the same wavelength? It keeps on feeling like that

The areas and degrees to which your experiences & perspectives overlap expand the older you both get, to the point where an age gap has a practically negligible effect, but it probably never really goes away; and the younger you both are, the less overlap you have.

also FTR I don't have any specific ships in mind my brain is just floating this concept around like a DVD screensaver, this is not inspired by anything so I apologise if there's any recent drama I missed out on that it sounds like I'm vagueing about (there always is...)