[@Bartimaeus][color=7bcdc8] At the risk of quoting myself, I think these points pertain most to this conversation. [/color]

[quote=@Impaqt]

 However, while we're being honest with ourselves here, most of us know when we read our writing on children that it comes across weird, but for the sake of "adding that extra cuteness" or "Provoking some feeling from the innocence of a child", we cut corners and go over the top. I'll be blunt here. It's sloppy and it's bad writing. 

Stupid Anime. Stupid Cookie Cutter Children, that are usually just adults in child bodies or emotional annoyances. There. I got that out of my system.) I don't hate anime. I watch it myself, but sometimes, I just have to cringe.


you have to attack mannerisms. There are, quite simply, things kids like and do not like doing. For example: children under five are very prone to tantrums. Consistently writing a child who is quiet, never complains, and always does what they are told, leads me to hope that you have some brilliant subplot about them being a robot or similar being. Otherwise, something is wrong. 

The final check in the behavior of children is physical action. In a normal situation, children do not outrun cars. They don't cook three course meals on their own. They don't jump off buildings and turn out okay or lift things twice their weight. Unless your child is a superhero, in which case you can feel free to make them jump off as many buildings as your heart desires.


A Child is as Multi-Faceted as any other character. The expression of these “facets” will differ in many cases to those of an adult

Child characters are not adults

Another case of this is children being completely unfrightened by severe injury or deformity because of their innocence.  Just being around other people gives the child a general template of what a healthy or well-formed person should look like.  A child's survival instincts will usually steer them away from anyone who does not fit the template.  These instincts are so powerful that some small children are terrified by even small deviances from the template - some have been known to cry in terror when someone puts on a hat or a pair of glasses.

Sometimes a child will be portrayed as intelligent enough to pull off a relatively sophisticated con or prank, yet can't figure out why their victim would be angry or upset about it.  To pull off a con of any kind requires you to have a relatively good comprehension of human behavior.  Furthermore, the whole point of a con (eg, tricking little Sally into turning loose of her dolly) is getting someone to do something they would never do under other circumstances.


Children who are completely fearless in their ignorance and innocence, blissfully frocking into situations where grown adults would wet their pants in terror. This is Hogwash. Children are just as fearful as adults are, if not more, because they haven't learned the not everything that makes a loud or strange noise, or crawls out from under the bed, won't hurt them. Although children are more impulsive and get get themselves into more danger than adults, they still have survival instincts. 

As a last note, writing completely from a child’s point of view can rob the work of necessary perspective.

Try to allow for adult exposition etc. (for example, have my narrator looking back from a future place, slipping the odd insight in here and there — though there are other methods.)

[/quote]

[color=7bcdc8] If you want an adult, make an adult. Don't make a child, but really it's just an adult with the added "Cuteness" and "Innocence" which is exactly what you're trying to do here. Don't. For the sake of everyone's sanity that might unknowingly fight this character, don't. If you do keep them together for some unGodly reason, make a clear line where this is a child and this is an adult, and don't EVER cross those lines. For example, your Demon should never ever come to the front and control the child. It's boring, unoriginal, and plain bad. I'm not a fan of multiple personality characters though. Most people aren't, I don't think. They tend to be fatally bland. I think that's what most of these guys are trying to get at. A common mistake in authors is trying to fit way too much in one character, that their character becomes non-relatable (Why is this word coming up as incorrect on my screen?). Once you do that, you lose all interest. This is more-so I think in Roleplays where people try to make their characters fit every niche' as possible. I imagine, this could be an even greater problem in an Arena setting. So, these guys aren't going to play coy with that kind of thing. They see it and recognize it and will murder it if given the opportunity. The simplest character is probably, more often that not, the best one. [/color]