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Not Growing Up Sucks: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|'''Oskar:''' Are you really my age?
'''Eli:''' Yes, but I've been this age for a very long time.
|''[[Let the Right One In]]''}}
Some (well, many) kids think [[Growing Up Sucks]]. Then there's this. It turns out [[Immortality Begins At Twenty]] is only true for a lucky few, because due to some form of [[Phlebotinum]], this child can never grow up. They are forever frozen in their preteens or early teens. If still organic and biologically alive, they will never mature enough to even seem ''close'' to becoming
Oh, and in live-action television, there's one more thing to worry about. The actor who ''plays'' you is going to keep on aging, so [[Real Life Writes the Plot|sooner or later they'll probably kill you off]]. Vampire children are especially susceptible to this.
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Common causes for not being able to grow up include but are not limited to: Being a robot, [[Brain Uploading|virtual copy]], [[Golem|magically animated puppet]], being [[curse]]d or an [[Undead Child]].
May or may not overlap with [[Who Wants to Live Forever?]] and [[I Hate You, Vampire Dad]]. [[Sub-Trope]] of [[Blessed with Suck]]. Not to be confused with [[Not Allowed to Grow Up]], which is about live-action characters being forced to remain the same age via [[Executive Meddling]], not any in-story reason -- despite their actors growing up in the roles. Closely related to [[Never Grew Up]] (which is a voluntary decision by the child to not grow up). See also [[Legal Jailbait]]
[[The Other Wiki]] [[wikipedia:Puer aeternus|calls this]] "[[Puer aeternus]]", pointing out that the concept is [[Older Than Feudalism]].
Contrast [[Elderly Immortal]].
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* One album of the Belgium comic book series [[Urbanus]] featured a sorceres who was cursed by her master/mentor to remain a child forever because she abused her powers to turn her brother into a crow. She desperately wants to break the curse because she mentally did mature and now wants a steady relationship, but because of her body still being that of a child she can't get one.
* In Grant Morrison's ''[[Doom Patrol]]'' run, a sect of the Cult of the Unwritten Book are kids who are given surgery to attain eternal youth. The surgeries are quite painful and mutilates the kids severely, and then they start to realize that staying young isn't as great as they thought. So they become the Little Sisters of Our Lady of the Razor, and walk around brandishing knives.
* One issue of ''[[30 Days of Night]]'' had a vampire
▲== [[Fanfic]] ==
* Detians in ''[[Undocumented Features]]'' can sometimes, if their immortality is activated by traumatic injury, be frozen in their current ages. This is called Edgerton's Syndrome, after the guy who took high-speed pictures of fast-moving objects, freezing the images forever in time.
* Most people agree that the teenage years suck. Now, imagine if you became undead while a teenager, and were more or less stuck that way forever. This is what happened to Adrius, a Forsaken teenager encountered in ''[[Travels Through Azeroth and Outland]]''.
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'''Claudia:''' And it means something else too, doesn't it? I shall never, ever grow up. Tell me how it came to be that I am this...''thing''. }}
* Ben from ''Castaways of the Flying Dutchman'' is stuck at about fourteen: just old enough to fall in love, but still young enough that if he stays in one place too long, it will become obvious very quickly that he's not aging.
*
**
** And the teenage vampires in ''[[Carpe Jugulum]]''.
* ''[[The Little Vampire]]'': Rüdiger (Rudolph) and his siblings Anna and Lumpi. Lumpi became a vampire while in puberty and will never grow out of this difficult phase. Rüdiger and Anna still seem to be children at heart, despite the fact that they have been vampires for at least 150 years.
* Seria Mau in M. John Harrison's novel ''Light''. Her physical age is around 30, but her mental age is still around 13; the age when she was voluntarily imprisoned as a K-ship. She is shown to have tantrums and not have the understanding one would expect of a sane, unbroken adult; her body is also unable to grow past the age she was when [[Spaceship Girl|she merged with her ship.]]
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** There is also Godric, Eric's maker, who is over 2000 years old, but looks like roughly 16. It's not really clear if his apparent age has any disadvantages for him, although Eric did complain at first (he felt that "Death" should look more impressive).
* ''[[The Vampire Diaries]]'' has Anna, a girl who looks about 15, but is really the same age as the Salvatore brothers. At least Stefan might count, too, being eternally stuck at 17.
* [[Truth in Television]] example: ''[[
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' briefly featured a child vampire known as The Anointed One.
* ''[[Being Human (UK)]]'''s third season had an episode with a forty year old vampire who was still stuck as a teenager. He had been taken care of by his family, but when they died of old age he was left alone to fend for himself. Complicated by him still being mentally 14 as well as physically.
== Tabletop Games ==
* In the [[old World of Darkness]], children of [[Our Monsters Are Different|ghouls]] or [[Our Vampires Are Different|15th generation vampires]] age at 1/4 the normal rate, and that includes [[Longest Pregnancy Ever|gestation of around 2-3 years.]] Partially averted since they will reach puberty [[Growing Up Sucks|eventually]].
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Aion]]'' has a Daeva in Sanctum explain that she became a Daeva at a very young age, and so still looks very young (the player has the option of making a childlike character as well). This could be a subversion, as she doesn't seem troubled by it at all, but it provides some Fridge thinking on the subject.▼
▲* [[Aion]] has a Daeva in Sanctum explain that she became a Daeva at a very young age, and so still looks very young (the player has the option of making a childlike character as well). This could be a subversion, as she doesn't seem troubled by it at all, but it provides some Fridge thinking on the subject.
* {{spoiler|Porky}} in ''[[Mother 3]]'' - and is also a {{spoiler|[[Time Abyss]]}}.
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'' has ''a race of [[Our Elves Are Better|forest-dwellers]]'' called the Kokiri, who are born directly from the Deku Tree somehow... Only one of them seems to care about the fact that they can't grow up, but their physical deficiencies are a big deal when monsters move into the forest. This trope is more seen by Link (and the player,) because it comes as a surprise to him when the Kokiri children he was raised with haven't aged a day after [[Time Skip|seven years]].
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* In ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'', Presea Combatir was subjected to an experiment when she was a child, giving her immense physical strength but severely suppressing her emotions and stopping her from aging. After regaining her emotions and learning of just what she has been made to do all these years, she has a breakdown. In the ending, it's revealed that she's actually 28 years old chronologically, yet still looks no older than 12.
* {{spoiler|Ilya}} from ''[[Fate/stay night]]'' is about twenty. While not on business, she appears to be quite a [[Cheerful Child]], but [[Hidden Depths|there's a ruthless, realistic side hidden under the]] [[Cheerful Child]] facade, one that will break through nearly anything to accomplish what she wants. It's not really surprising, since she ''is'' {{spoiler|[[The Unfettered|Kiritsugu's]]}} daughter. She doesn't mind looking so young, and {{spoiler|her eventual early death from [[Clone Degeneration]]}} is something that she accepts with only mild feelings of melancholy.
* Babette from ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'' is a 300+ year old vampire who was turned when she was a child. She puts the [[Cheerful Child]] facade to good use on her assassination missions for the Dark Brotherhood, but she's pretty straightforward about not really being kid anymore. As she puts it, she's no more a child than the protagonist is. She looks and sounds (having a child actor despite her gory dialog) exactly like other little girls in the game (except for the telltale red eyes and fangs) but comes across as one of the most mature and level-headed members of the Brotherhood (which admittedly isn't that much of an accomplishment since they are a cult of death-worshippers). Babette doesn't really seem to mind her condition—most vampires in the series are evil/sociopathic <ref>In ''The Elder Scrolls'' vamprism is obvious and easy to cure in the first three days of infection, so generally only people who ''want'' to become flesh eating creatures of the night, the incredibly isolated, and those kidnapped for forced conversion become vampires.</ref> and don't really care about little things like "love", so no "never being able to grow up and marry someone" angst for Babette.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* [[wikipedia:Brooke Greenberg|Brooke Greenberg]]
* [[wikipedia:Turner's syndrome|Turner's Syndrome]] is one of a number of genetic disorders that can result in the appearance of extreme youth.
* Many low-functioning, non-verbal autistic kids (which make up less than 10% of all diagnoses) have this issue. Those with higher-functioning autism or Asperger's syndrome can, and very often do, function as adults without insurmountable problems. When they can't, it's usually a case of [[My Beloved Smother]] and/or [[Meddling Parents]], though this is rare.
* [[wikipedia:Bart de Graaff|Bart de Graaf]] was a well known Dutch television presenter who suffered a growth disorder which caused him to look and sound 12 for most of his life.
* Would you believe [[The Andy Milonakis Show|Andy Milonakis]] is
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Otherness Tropes]]
[[Category:Aging Tropes]]
[[Category:Youngsters]]
[[Category:This Index Will Live Forever]]
▲[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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