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The Many-Worlds Theory


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I love taking my characters and using the many-worlds theory by taking what is essentially their soul and playing them in a different universe. One of my favourite characters has been a death knight, a werewolf, a soldier in the British army and currently exploring how he works in a 1920s American circus. My question is have any of you tried this before and if so what sort of things have you done? Because I love the thought of every me loves every you and really explore it through this.

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I have done it. Maribel had been a Moulin Rouge dancer, a Tortuga innkeeper, a Wild West saloon girl, a travelling circus' knivethrower's assistant. Sigurd had been a viking warlord, a merman, a such warlord teleported into a modern world, a police officer. Marina and Andrea had lived in the 1050 Byzantine Empire, in 1720's/ 1730s/ 1740s West Indies, in 1790s in the Ottoman Empire, in modern times.

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All of my characters are transferable to any site/story that I want. One of my characters I've had since 2005 or something? Maybe longer? In fact one of my characters is played across I think 10+ different "worlds" in my 1x1 coterie at the moment.

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I used to know someone who made completely new characters on every board they joined, and it was so wild to me. Lol. All my characters travel with me, and it's neat to see how they change depending on which setting I plop them in. One of my characters has been a 14 year old noble, a 2k+ year gang leader (technically the latter was a continuation of the former), a 38 year old school teacher, and in her current incarnation she's an 18 year old widow (badly) trying to hide from her ex-husband's enemies. It's also interesting to see what traits they retain through it all, and how differing backstories arrive at the same conclusion.

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I've played various genres throughout the years spanning from chat to forums; from medieval to modern. I've built entire families that could go through different time frames. I've had some that spurned ideas for other things from those families. When I leave somewhere I tend to take my characters with me and see what I can do differently with them. Now on my own forum I'm seeing where the more modern ones go with an open canvas.

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I make all new characters when I go to different sites / settings unless they’re super similar site concepts.

 

I’m honestly really intrigued by this concept, since it’s so opposite of what I do. Very cool.

 

I guess I’ve never considered it because, to me, my characters are entirely shaped by their circumstances, upbringing, time in history, etc. In the nature vs nurture debate I guess I’d fall heavily in the nurture camp, although it’s undeniable both have an impact.

 

To me, if you change the setting, you change the character so much I might as well start over. I get very attached to my concept of who that character is in World 1. I have tried to put them in a new world and start over from scratch with their timeline... but then I always think about who they were in Word 1. It’s almost like the memory of playing them before is a semi-transparent layer that overshadows the new blank page and it’s super distracting. 

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Sometimes when I move on, I can take the histories with me so they just grow even more from place to place. Other times I have to change aspects of their histories (write out certain characters usually for a random NPC) and other times just play them how they are. It can be a challenge to adapt characters to other places. In time they become more from the growth and changes. Though I've had some instances where I've had to start with brand new ones and I can't seem to get a voice for them as much as something that's more familiar. It's been interesting to me to see the different responses.

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Not actually @Lucky Cat AU insinuates that there is an original universe to begin with. A character can be adapted for any universe and not be their original rendition ever just because things have to be altered to fit within the scope of an RP.

 

@omgwes I disagree. If you change the setting and have to change elements of a character to reach a same or similar goal. I'm going to use DC Universes for this example. Harley Quinn, one of my favorite DC characters. She has many different renditions, different worlds she's been on and different ways she's turned out.

 

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All very similar characters but with completely different reasons for being how/who they were. Some still obsessed with the Joker, others happy the joker is gone because he as an abusive asshole and they finally understood it. I mean there are plenty of ways that things could change and turn out and be for a character. Tweak one thing and see a completely different outcome come up. If you want to see a different aspect to a character or just like playing that character there is no reason to create a new character when you have a perfectly good character ready for you to play with and that you're used to.

 

DC does this in spades.

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The many worlds theory isn't alternative universe but rather it is actually quantum mechanics, also known as the many worlds interpretation. All worlds are real and there are an infinite number of universes and so everything that could happen will happen.  With that theory I suppose you could argue that every world your character is in could be their original world. At least that's how I look at it :)

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57 minutes ago, Lucky Cat said:

@Morrigan Isn't the first world they were brought in for their original world, though? XD

 

Not really. As @Winter in Bohemia said it's an actual thing and the "original" site may not be the "original" rendition of a given person, item, circumstance etc. What you consider "original" creation may be a modified creation in a multi-verse. One changed decision. One changed fact. One changed thing makes it a completely different world per multi-verse standards.

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I absolutely love this!  A few years ago I had an RP partner, and since it was one on one and about half chat based, we flew through plots. Since we started out science fiction, we had one couple that sort of... showed up in every new universe we created. Vikings AU? totally there. Stark Trek AU? They showed up again. Soon, we started incorporating their backstory, they knew that they had lived all these lives. It was a really fun way to carry over plots when we got an itch to start writing futuristic setting instead of modern. 

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I used to labor over totally new characters each time I joined a new site. In my dotage, I do that less and less. If I have a character that is adaptable, I will likely recycle him or her.

 

I have always recycled my playbys because I don't really like looking for new ones.

 

On a humorous note, I realized as I was going through my sites and doing a check to see if anyone wanted to keep writing at two of them that I've used very similar names for my 3 main male characters (Shade, Cade, and Wade). It was totally unintentional! When I name a character, I browse baby and historical name sites and then go with what sounds good.

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Someone somewhere went to sleep and dreamed us all alive.
Dreams get pushed around a lot, and I doubt if we'll survive.
We won't get to wake up, dreams were born to disappear.
And I'm pretty sure that none of us are here.
~ None of Us Here by Jim Stafford ~

 

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I have done this with my characters for a while. I did it because when I was first on twitter, I liked the idea of fandom hopping. (It didn't really work out very well, however, because other writers don't always take it seriously enough to be able to interact with them properly, so it was more light-hearted and parody like than I would have wanted it to be.) It was an advantage in other ways because it allowed me to interact with different versions of canon characters in the fandom. That can be an advantage if characters are always being created and abandoned/deleted. It also means that you can rp with more people. Unfortunately, it can also be a cause of contention when you want to find a version and stick with that or it can cause confusion. These days, I'm a bit more picky about things. Another thing I've tried is making a different AU world for characters. This I like because it's less confusing and a concept I will be using on my board.

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