please tell me where, in game, it was stated that 9s is a child? also you know that 2b and him are about the same height but 2b looks taller because she wears high weels right? maybe don't call people gross for shipping an unproblematic ship just because you like to infantilize any men that don't look like he came from a bara manga, please
alrighty, let’s fucking do this anon
i’m gonna slap this under a read more because it’s a fucking girthy post
if you’d caught me on a bad day, i might’ve just asked you to hop off my dick and leave it be, but i’m gonna go for it here and prove my point
okay, so it’s absolutely canon that 9S is 2-3 years old. as an android, that doesn’t mean much, sure, but let’s go deeper into this.
the scanner models are a relatively new addition to YorHa, as 9S actually confirms in game. his personality is also akin to a child’s, up until the latter half of the game. there’s a lot of child like tropes in there (naivete, curiosity, etc), and he’s definitely not as mature as the rest of the cast, up until. well, let’s call it The Event, and by that i mean, route C onwards.
his DLC outfit is also the same outfit that brother Nier wears pre-timeskip, which the wiki puts him at 15 years old. i’m mentioning this because this was a deliberate choice. there are three Niers in the original game. brother Nier, both pre and post timeskip, which are stylistically very different, and father Nier.
A2 gets post-timeskip brother Nier’s outfit as a DLC costume, and 9S gets young brother Nier’s outfit. this is important to my point, because they could’ve given A2 a variant of father Nier’s, and 9S could’ve gotten older brother Nier’s outfit, but that parallel is very deliberate.
and yes, 9S harbours feelings for 2B, that much is certain, but she rebuffs him constantly and makes it clear that she’ll kill him if needs be, although she absolutely does come to care for him by the end of route A/B
onto 2B herself
her age is unconfirmed, and whilst 9S’ age isn’t too relevant by itself, when compared to a combat model like 2B, the context then makes sense
so 2B is a combat model, and has likely been around for a lot longer than 9S. we can make this assumption, as her designation is actually 2E and it’s very unlikely she was created specifically to watch 9S, as there are other E type androids out and about in the game world. there’s not many, but they’re there.
as such, we can deduce that 2B is significantly older and wiser than 9S, establishing an age gap between the two of them. also, considering the nature of 2B’s cover and her true mission (to stop 9S from uncovering the truth and kill him if he does), i can’t see them pulling a fresh android from the pipeline and putting her to work on such a task. that’s something that would be reserved for a distinguished combat operative and someone trusted by the Commander, which 2B clearly is
her being older is pushed further by her personality. she’s stoic and very stern, very much someone who is considered “by the book”, for the most part. this is absolutely indicative of an older person
i can see that maybe you’d try to push the point that her DLC costume is Kainé’s (who is listed as being 17 on the wiki), but as 2B is the designated “fanservice character”, it was the only real choice, considering that Kainé is the only female main cast member that isn’t a literal 9 year old from the original Nier, and therefore is irrelevant to this argument
and i’m gonna literally quote @felwinter here, because we’ve discussed this a lot and we both agree completely regarding this topic:
“there’s also something that a friend of mine says a lot, in the sense that when youre dealing with anime characters that have weird ages due to them being different forms of life, you need to very much take into account the manner in which they are physically presented
when I look at 9S, I see a child
I literally do not know how someone could mistake his character model for anything other than a 13 year-old kid
the shape of his facial features, his stature, his voice, even his haircut, and his dress are all indicative of a young boy
2B is clearly much older just from looking at her facial structure and personality, and people who are unwilling to accept that need to do some deep soulsearching about why they are so invested in such an obviously wrong, not problematic, but straight-up wrong ship”
so whilst there’s not much chiselled into stone regarding their ages, it’s clear to most people with a degree of awareness that 9S is coded as a character in his mid-teens, and 2B is coded as someone much older/superior to him, therefore making the shipping of the two of them feel paedophilic and unsavoury
now would you kindly hop off my dick? thanks