im sorry if you answered a similar question before, but does age factor in at all? i’ve been debating on this one for a while and whether or not i should distance myself from it. im 21 and i think the character is 13? it’s never directly stated, but implied that they’re a kid. i identified with them as a kid before knowing what kin was and now im not sure if i can do that anymore since im older. if it helps any, i’m also autistic and usually feel younger than i am?
while age is a point of debate, every single person i’ve seen discussing it has agreed that if you were first exposed to the canon at the same age as the character, or younger, then you’re fine
as far as my personal opinion goes, i don’t see any problem with iding as a character younger than yourself (especially if you are neurodivergent in a way that causes people to infantalize you, or if you have ptsd or delusions) unless you’re using it to excuse the sexualization of minors or similar
Age is not ‘a point of debate’.
I’m sorry but when you are kin of someone, barring edge cases, you are not kin of them just at one moment in time. You are sharing the personhood/existence/memories of someone who presumably had a whole life beyond what was depicted in their canon- and if you’re not experiencing something deeper than merely what was shown in canon then frankly you should re-examine whether you are actually kin of that person.
There is no possible way that being kin with someone who was depicted as a child is offensive or problematic any more than saying ‘yes, at one point I was ten years old” is offensive or problematic.
Someone who is kin of a character who happens to be 14 during the time their canon depicts them is not saying that they are 14, or that they identify as being a 14 year old.
