[4]

[carnality.livejournal.com]

Basically, we've been allowing doubles of characters on a case by case basis. It's come to our attention how difficult and sensitive this can be, and it'd really help us know what you think.

Feel free to be completely honest but be tactful of it. Do not call people out, do not make examples of people who are not comfortable being made examples of and if you get into a discussion with someone, keep it civil or take it to IM. I will freeze threads if I see people are getting too personal or heated (and you can happily IM me and tell me I was wrong if I mistake your passion for anger, consent would be needed from both in the discussion.)

Basically, double characters, yay or nay? How do you feel about it? What are the pros and cons of it, in your mind? Should we allow instances of it, or should we just ban it all together? Should it not be so black and white?

There was some discussion on this post here about it earlier, if you'd like to expand on ideas or whatever you like.


We are not going to force anyone with doubles to drop their characters, this is in no way going to affect any of you so please don't feel the need to get defensive! We just want to know, for the future, what we should consider. ♥ thank you, in advance. :D

Comments

[maraich]

Well, I've already expressed some thoughts earlier.

Personally, I think the first mun with the character should give consent. I mean, there are some cases that are totally AU that I don't think it'd be necessary (for example, in Patalliro Saiyuki it's a different universe, and Maraich isn't even named Maraich. He's a monk instead of an assassin, he even says killing is wrong... So I don't think in that case someone would need permission. Since I use orange-hair/blue eyed Maraich, they wouldn't even look exactly the same). Although I wouldn't expect the mods to know all the info offhand, especially not for every series, but they can ask if they need to.

On the other hand there are series that basically rehash the same story, and the characters are supposed to be basically the same. I'll just use another sample from my own series. I play manga!Maraich. He's basically the same as anime!Maraich, although they change a couple things. But in that case, it would be very close to the character I'm already playing, so I probably wouldn't want someone to app anime!Maraich (especially since I incorporate a couple things from the anime. Much like a lot of people do with their characters).
I think in that case it should probably be discussed with whoever had the character first.

And then there's the third scenario, like we discusses about Phoenix, which probably happens the least often. That's where it is the same character, but in a different part of the timeline that's far away from the timeline the original mun is playing from. I think consent would be important there, too, but the option should be open because sometimes it's almost like a different character.

Overall, I think it's important that: The characters be reasonably different. The person who had the character first is ok with it.
And, in the last case, it would also be important that there's a decent time lapse between character A and character A2. If it's something like 6 months... Well, it's completely likely that the first character would be on DDD for six months and get to that part of the timeline. With something like 5 years it's easier to make it that the timeline never overlaps like that without stretching it out so much.

[maraich]

Oh, yeah, and I think taking into account DDD can mess up canons is important, too.

For example? Maraich has Matthias.
Matthias doesn't exist in the manga (well, he sort of does, but he's kind of dead and he never had a name). So obviously anything I do in Patalliro-verse now has to take into account that Maraich has a son that he didn't originally have.
It creates it's own unique timeline that doesn't match up with the original timeline, thereby sort of making it an AU universe even though I took him from canon.

In other words, sometimes a character taken from canon becomes AU on DDD, and can never get back to the actual canon perfectly. Which makes it more plausible to treat it like a different universe instead of "this character is exactly the same person as this one from later".

For example, if DDD Phoenix got married to Maya and had three kids, he could never become Hobo Phoenix. Because Hobo Phoenix never married Maya and never had three kids. If that all makes sense?