litphoria

• Child: A character who appears to be pre-pubescent
• Teenager: A character who appears to be post-pubescent, but not an adult
• Young adult: A character who appears to be an older teen

There is no age-category for characters in puberty. At least it seemed to me like that by the descriptions, so they should be improved.

We had a pre-teen age that got declined here because a span of like 2 years isn't very important and useful.

I've got a feeling the mating cycle trait could be relevant here. (I don't even know why we have that trait in that exact form.)

What does someone in puberty look like? Post pubescent but with more acne?

Puberty is roughly between 11 and 16. So your point is, someone 14 years old will look either like 10 or 17?

Does not post-pubescent refer to "after the onset of puberty"? It's fine how it is.

Actually no, you can be "pubescent", can't you. So the description for teenager should change.

As far as I know it's a bit of a language tangle.

Puberty is the point where you can begin to reproduce - it's a chronological milestone and not a period you're in. Postpubescent means after that point. Teenagers are that group generally speaking, except for people with late puberty, but that's not something we can account for.

But then you can also define puberty as this period of rpaid physical change and postpubescent where it's evened out. Then puberty is a period that overlaps with just about most of the teenage years, because for example the tail end involves boys beginning to develop facial hair.

So really this just calls for "pubescent or post-pubescent" or not worrying about it too hard because really, nobody's going to argue with a character who's 14 and hasn't hit puberty yet picking teenager.

Alternately: teenagers aren't defined by being pubescent or post pubescent anyway. They're defined by their age ending in "teen" and they're pretty much mainly a human thing. (And a recent human thing too.) Most animals are just adolescent or adult and that's all there is to it.

If we generalise a similar period to nonhumans anyway it's the age between being a child or an adult - whatever that might mean. So, there's a couple of extra options there to redefine Teenager.

We could go with this:

A character in their teen years, or who is no longer a child but not yet recognised as an adult.

I googled for Puberty and Postpubescent. I didn't got it that way, that "after the begin of puberty" is meant. The non-adult teen description sounds good. So its circa 1-12, 13-17 and 18-19. I think, a young adult could be till 21 or something.

That sounds about right, Desdemona.

My point is in the sentence before Des, that all items here are based on looks and appearance. Nothing is tied to an age. Is your point you want a numerical value rather than a descriptive one?

Out of curiosity, is there a particular character you're trying to describe where this distinction between pre, ongoing, and post puberty is meaningful?

@Astarte: No. I made an adult character and noticed the description of "young adult" is strange. The "Teenager" is "not an adult" while the "Young adult" is an "old teenager". I prefer numerical values or better said I prefer absolute traits instead of relative traits. But that's not my point here.

What action would you like to go with from here? Description change?

I'd like to suggest that description change, unless your planning on editing this, Desdemona.

My point was: There is no age-category for characters in puberty. If it is meant that way that one can choose child or teenager from roughly 11-16, depending if the char "looks more like before or after puberty", then the text should be improved. The idea, that a child in the first half of puberty looks like before and in the second half looks like after it, is not shared by everyone (I assume) so it should be made clear. I can edit the suggestion.

The statement "There is no age-category for characters in puberty" is true because it's also true in real life: there is no age category that has to do with puberty in our language, other than, "you're in puberty" - because when puberty happens is so far disconnected from age. There's no age category to be had.

So we might as well just not pursue defining these in terms of puberty, except for child which is (mostly) reliable and accurate in being prepubescent (works well enough for humans and is correct for anything else).

Nor should that definition be shared by everyone. That's not how puberty looks for everyone because early/late blooming is most definitely a thing and it's likely why it's tied entirely to appearance and not to a numerical character age.

@Samus: There are three possible definitions for age: actual, physical, social and those can be "apparent" or "real". Yes, what you say is right for RL where age-categories are social while puberty is physical. But we are discussing the trait. It describes the apparent physical age, and puberty is a physical age.

@Astarte: But a person who reaches puberty with 7 has not the same age as a person who reaches puberty with 15 AND they also don't appear to have the same age.

A thirty year old doesn't look like a forty year old doesn't look like a fifty year old. The trait doesn't have the granularity of tracking year to year though, it gives you a rough idea of the physical development of the character. If the specific age is important to you, write it into the extra details on your trait.

I suggested that description change here: change description of teenager (litphoria.com).

I have changed the description of teenager (23857 (litphoria.com)) and it no longer references specifically being post-pubescent.

Is there more we should change here?

I have reread the discussion, I am afraid I didn't make my point clear.

Puberty is the point where you can begin to reproduce - it's a chronological milestone and not a period you're in.

Wikipedia says different: On average, girls begin puberty around ages 10–11 [...] Girls usually complete puberty around ages 15–17. I am with wiki here. I understand puberty as a period from roughly age 11-16 and I assume most players do. That's why I wrote there is no trait-option for chars in puberty.

I am not opposed to the use of "puberty".

Child: A young character who has not reached puberty yet. (1-11) Teenager: An adolescent character who is already in puberty, usually around the teenage years for humans. (12-17) Young adult: A character who has left puberty but is still young for an adult. (18-25)

The description of "age" is also not good: "The relative age of a character." Relative to what? It should be the "apparent physical" age or something similar.

I'm really not clear on what you want to do from here exactly. What are you shooting for? Are the current options unsatisfactory such that you can't express something? If so, what is it?

Are they broken for not being based around puberty? If so, that wasn't the intent with them to begin with - puberty's just one arbitrary thing, but not necessarily the most useful thing.

My understanding was that the previous options appeared to map around a period of several years going by their description, and they no longer do that by consequence of changing the teenager description.

We don't have an age category for characters experiencing puberty, but that isn't exactly a problem because that isn't the intent with them. Puberty is an extremely un-neat biolgoical process that has only a loose relationship to age: it can start as early as 8 years old, and precocious puberty is a medical term for puberty that starts even earlier.

I've considered suggesting that we rename "teenager" to "adolescent", which is more agnostic for those characters who don't experience adolescence as teenage years.

Please do try to make your point clear because I'm not sure I follow it.

Depends on how you define age. My definition was "apparent physical". Which means the character physically appears like she is in puberty. Not if she is actually in puberty. Since girls typically reach puberty with 11 she looks like 11 or older. "Not yet recognised as an adult" means how the society defines it, which has also only a loose relationship to age. Could mean 15, 18 or 21.

I think your definition for teenager is quite good. Do you want to change the definitions for child and young adult also?