crayonfic / agereg: regressor playing with a biokid - how would it go?

[himejoshiheart]

background details: regressor and biokid know each other, biokid knows regressor regresses (not that exact phrasing but they know that He's Like That Sometimes.)

how would them playing together look like? would people catch on that something is different (aka that theyre regressed) about the regressor, assuming they play in public? 

if you're a regressor or know a regressor that plays games with biokids (think: niblings, younger cousins, godchildren, kids you babysit etc etc etc), what's it like?

(sorry if this seems weird haha...)

Comments

[silverflight8]

Your question is "how do people of x age and y age play", right? Can you provide the ages? That would help.

[dsrtao]

I *think* the the question is: "One of my characters is reincarnated/time-looped into their own life as a child. They have confided in a normal child of similar biological age. How do they play together?"

If that's the question, then silverflight8's question is still pertinent: is this a 6 year old and a 30 year old? a 4 year old and a 104 year old? a 12 year old and a 20 year old?

[himejoshiheart]

the question is about age regression as in the mental phenomena :3 i have never heard of that peggy sue type thing being referred like that before and now it makes me curious about it, especially w/ how you understood my question! mayhaps i should write a fic?

[silverflight8]

Age regression to what age?

[himejoshiheart]

around 10 at the oldest- biokid is also 10

[dsrtao]

Many folks already have; the decision on whether or not to write something is up to you!

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PeggySue

[himejoshiheart]

oh! thats the trope i was referrin to!

[autodach]

I tried to google the terms you used but got no results (man google sucks these days).
Do you mean regression as in BDSM age play or something else? Is the other character also age-playing or an actual child?

[genarti]

Oh! I automatically read this as regression in the way it's used in, for example, Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint and other east Asian fiction that partakes of this kind of metafictional trope, where it means someone who's essentially time-looping through a certain section of their life, and was definitely confused. If this means someone who mentally/emotionally regresses to an earlier age, that's very different, haha.

[rodo]

Not quite what you're asking for, but when I was young, we had an adult neighbour who was mentally around six due to disability. He loved children, loved playing with them, but once the children in the neighbourhood were around five or six, they no longer wanted to play with him. None of us knew how to deal with him. When we were younger, we loved him. But older than that, and someone being both an adult and a child at the same time was just something that we were weirded out by.

So, a lot here would depend on how close these two people are (so, closer than a neighbour you see every other day), how old they are, how societally accepted/common regressing is in your worldbuilding, and what their relationship is in general.

[azurelunatic]

So assuming I'm reading it right (an adult with an "inner child" situation, playing with a child of a similar age to the inner child, while mentally young) -- often a physical+mental adult has an air of Tolerance while playing with a child, whereas someone regressed might display childlike enthusiasm for the game, and might have more exciting/less safe "yes-and" reactions to the biokid's play ideas. And the biokid is going to be limited in play by their lesser physical strength/height/reach, whereas the regressor might actually be able to get the cookie jar off the highest shelf. Or might be able to open the sealed peanut butter jar if the biokid decides it's time to "make a cake" and they are both scavenging the pantry for ingredients (instead of making "cake" out of mud in the yard). So what would normally be pure imaginative play could take on a potentially hazardous (or potentially hilarious) physical dimension.

[himejoshiheart]

oh! thank you for this comment .. much to think about

[winterbird]

(Experience: Familiar with ageplay and littlespace in the BDSM community, but also directly with child alters re: DID back in the day).

It's my personal experience (of DID, I wouldn't bring littlespace into any environment with a literal child) that if the adult is behaving in a genuinely more childlike manner, most kids under the age of around 7-8 think that's great. Kids *older* than that tend to be extremely savvy that something unusual or strange is going, and some may even find it a bit creepy. In fact if you're writing is set in the modern day, most 10 year olds are savvy enough these days to be like 'ugh go do that somewhere else' and even find it embarrassing or disgusting, they certainly wouldn't want to be see by their friends in that situation, but they might make exceptions for say, playing video games where no one can judge them.

So this comes down a lot to the maturity cycle of the biokid in question.

As someone who had multiple child alters many years ago, I found that it was *fantastic* for hanging out and playing with kids from around the ages of 3-7 provided there was other adult supervision and everyone was comfortable. After that, even I could recognise that kids gain a level of awareness that means they recognise that you aren't behaving like an "adult."

Even explanations like 'sometimes they're just like that' only goes so far, a 10 year old might hear that and be like 'okay, well, I'm gonna go play over here then.'

Since you mention 10 as the marker, these kids are a lot more "with it" and much much less open to things that seem societally outside of the norm (this is literally part of their development! Kids after a certain age go through phases of finding things more gross or disgusting than normal - think boys talking about 'girl germs' or girls talking about how boys are 'gross' - and they start to discern and recognise when something abnormal or unusual is happening, even if that thing isn't going to hurt them, they start also experimenting with new kinds of withdrawn consent. From shaming a parent at the shopping centre for being seen with them, to - of course - avoiding a grown-ass adult body behaving like a literal child.)

I was fortunate enough to never make any older kids uncomfortable with my own child alters, but I have seen it happen and have heard of it happening, and it's like... ahhh, not cool. Definitely research the maturity markers of contemporary 10 year olds. Even the ones that are cool with it might have learned to be cool with it because they have a family member with DID, etc. They won't just magically become cool with it unless they are a) unusually lonely, b) from an abusive family and desperate for connection, c) have disorganised attachment because of prior abuse, d) someone is able to sit them down and explain what and why something is happening and the kid is reasonable enough to be like '.....okay I guess.'

Also, if the regressor is mentally a 10 year old, they are also going to be *very sensitive* to the judgement of other 10 year olds and may not actually want to play with them!!! This - again - is a period of life where kids pick up and drop friends like hot potatoes, and are (often) very clear about who they do and don't want to hang out with. There's no reason to assume the regressor *would want to play with the biokid either.* They might be extraordinarily sensitive to the fact that their body is "wrong." (Again, lots of eating disorders really start maturing out around these ages, kids are excruciatingly aware of their appearance and what they feel is lacking, if this regressor is truly mentally a 10 year old, they may not even want to be seen by other people because they're aware their body is so so different).

(I'm assuming they have an adult body).

I don't think it's particularly weird, I just think you might want to target some research into like cultural/sociological development of kids around the ages of 8-11, and also be extremely aware of how kids develop emotional awareness of things around taboo, disgust, things being problematic, and so on. Even if you have these two characters getting along, *readers who have kids* might question what's going on.

But yeah, generally speaking I didn't go out of my way to look for kids or anything when I had child alters take over. If anything I gravitated towards folks who could keep me safe, because I was aware that I was vulnerable. Or I would keep to myself if I was mentally around the age of 11-12, I was extremely aware something 'odd' was going on and didn't want to inflict it on anyone.

I can't speak for anyone else, and this is going back a good 15-20 years ago, so the way people talk about DID is quite different now in general.

Other folks might have very different opinions! I can only speak to my direct experience, and also understanding milestones of kids - but all kids are different, and hit milestones differently.