I have a different opinion (or hope!) on the Ages Don't Matter thing.
When Sega got rid of the canon ages, I presumed it was so that they can adjust the characters to suit the project they're currently working on, and also stop trying to wrestle with Classic Sonic's age:
Sonic Frontiers clearly is a more mature Sonic, nobody would debate that. But then comes Prime with a younger Sonic. Rumble and the Sonic and Friends animation series are working with very different design philosophy that reads childlike.
I think it could be quite fun - maybe we can get some more serious Sonic's again from time to time because they know they're not tied to it, or tied to trying to make one linear timeline. They're preserving the general age gaps, but maybe they're not being loyal to the numbers. Seems like it could be fun!
So: Ages don't matter for Sega. They can play around with it. And so then can you: prefer angst and you can put them in their 20s, or like toony stuff you bring them right back down again. But if you're going to write an explicitly sexual/ romantic story, you can't be too surprised when age does matter to other fans in that regard - because it's important to those genres.
🦔‧₊˚✩彡
