Honestly, any part of who you are here is what I’m asking. I didn’t realize there was a difference between forum and Neithernor, as far as who you are. I thought the differences were just in the purple and green areas of the forum.
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That is the primary difference @Spina. In and out-of-world. PRSFNE (Polyguildic Research Society for Neithernorian Exploration) is more of the beginnings of a game that we have been experimenting with in the past but is FAAAAAAAR from being launchable.
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This tbh ^
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This is definitely informative. I’m still interested in seeing everyone’s point of view on their in world selves and any process that went into the creation. Even if they’re an extension of out of world you with Magiq added, you still get to look at that version and think about it’s thoughts and actions and consequences. I remember hearing or reading somewhere that people have trouble making beneficial choices for their future selves because they’re a different person that the current person has a hard time caring about. Here we have a different version of yourself that you immediately care about. It’s interesting.
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OMG. Yes. One of us. One of us.
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Yeah, this is a super interesting question, because I think the real-world ties have (at least for me) both limited my character creation choices and encouraged a lot of interesting character growth.
As CJ said above, the Forum didn’t used to have any sort of “out-of-world” areas at all. When I joined (around the time of the 3rd Assessment/post Fragment 12), the marketing was something similar to an ARG but with more story and less gaming, and given that, it just made the most sense to me to inhabit the Forum as myself, with a couple of little tweaks.
So when thinking about how I wanted to present the “character” of Viviane, I started with the premise that Magiq in the style of the AGP-verse is real, and given that, what might be different about me?
The initial question was, How did I find out about magiq? Was I a believer or an adept who had known all along that magiq was real? Had I just been hoping for it and then found people in the Mountaineers to confirm that it was? Did I just stumble upon the group thinking it would be a fun game and then discovering it was actually real? Given those possibilities, what background knowledge or experiences would I have that would lead me to believe in the possibility of real magiq? Those were the sorts of things I wrote into my backstory, and that I keep in mind when talking about my experience of magiq in-world.
The next question was (and is) How do you react to Magiq? This is sort of the ongoing question that shapes my in-world interactions. The Monarch Papers at the time I joined was getting pretty serious narratively. The Book had been burned (or “gotten crispy” as someone said), and characters were actually in danger of losing their lives/memories/selves to a very powerful enemy. With that in mind, whenever we made a decision, I would have to think through why I would make the decisions I would make, why I felt like preserving Magiq or revealing secrets or whatever was worth the risk. Like, in this alternate universe what motivates me?
I think the most interesting thing by far has been the continuation of the story after TMP, because I’ve had to think through How would I carry on after those major events? And often times it’s easiest to create a certain amount of continuity between my real-life moods and motivations and my magiqal ones.
Incidentally, I do have trouble caring about my future self (mostly because I have no proper sense of time and limited impulse control), but I see my Magiqal self as very much me personally, in this moment, albeit with a different (and hypothetical) set of possible actions and limitations.
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That parenthesis in the spoiler was me.
I know Griffin and I share a joining day, but yours must be pretty close to ours as well!
And real life things going on during TMP were the source for the quote from me.
But yes, coming in about the same time Viv did, and with my chosen forum name, I was feeling a bit wary/like someone might think I was a not-so-friendly plot-wise. (that never happened, or at least was never said where I could see it 
)
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I didn’t realize that the origins were different from the current iteration. That’s another facet to consider, how when a person joined influenced their in-world self. Do you find that interactions with people who were closer to your starting point are preferable to interactions with newer people who have entirely fictional selves?
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I joined when the whole forum was in-world as well. I crafted a backstory ( Finding the Way: Becoming a Mountaineer - #15 by Sellalellen )where the school librarian had snuck a copy of the Guide into my bag, and then went on from there, as me, but in slightly different circumstances. I almost see it as a “parallel dimension” self, with finding the Guide being the splitting-off point that leads my story in a different direction than the story of my character. So while she is essentially me, I do feel like (in keeping with the splitting dimensions analogy) the gap between character Sel and real Sel is getting wider, but not by so much that we’re two entirely different people. Just two possibilities of the same person? Idk I haven’t gotten philosophical about this in a while.
As for interacting with players who prefer to have a character entirely separate from themselves, I did find it strange at first, simply because there had never been a way to do that before then. Now, it’s no different to me than interacting with anyone else, though I can find it’s harder to get to know their real self sometimes.
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These answers are excellent and really help me to think about how I want to form myself in-world. The point you made about it being a bit difficult getting to know the real person is a good one. I want to embrace this community and get to know all of you and hope you guys get to know me so I think I want to keep In-world me myself. That was a weird sentence. Anyway, I could alternately see why someone would rather have the distinction if they were looking for an immersive escape.
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I think that’s really one of the big draws of this fantasy world for me, is that it’s much more immersive because you’re yourself, only plus magiq. You don’t have to try to put yourself into the shoes of someone from another culture or society (like in DnD, for example), imagine yourself going to a magic school like Hogwarts or Brakebills and create pretend experiences to draw from, etc. Your in-world life can be your regular life, but with this added enhancement. I think that’s what makes the “magiq-verse” unique, and why I’ve fallen in love with it.
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If you go on the Magiq wiki (Basecamp 33 Forum | MAGIQ Wiki | Fandom), you can see some of the archives of what the forum used to look like. As The Monarch Papers ended, the forum was restructured. It’s gone through quite a few changes and now there’s much more meta (out of world) content.
I’ve been around since close to the beginning (Fragment Two). It’s hard to fully describe how things were, but there was a time when no one knew anything about CJ. We were only communicating with him through NPCs, primarily Endri. We started to get to know CJ through his vlogs, and eventually the Cabinet Of Otherworldly Wonders category was created to house meta content. The Discord was created around Phase Three, and that led us to really start getting to know each other. I mention all this because, for a long time, we didn’t really have avenues to communicate outside of the in-world categories and I feel like that shaped us. Most of us didn’t come in playing characters, we came in as ourselves and played along with the Magiq aspect.
Personally I would advise people to come in as themselves. Partially because then the regulars will get to know your authentic self. But also because I feel like there’s a very real risk of Main Character Syndrome. Especially for people still getting acquainted with the lore of the world. Magiq is a thing that happens of course, but it’s fading from the world, and even when the remaining scraps are honed, it’s very dangerous and unpredictable. So when someone comes in with a character concept that is super entrenched in magiqal doings…it can be kind of problematic? At any rate, that’s my perspective on the matter. 
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More fantastic input! I used to play text based RPGs based on fantasy books when I was a kid and everyone other person was the True Hero from the way they wrote themselves. These are good things to state openly. I haven’t made it all the way through the books yet but I’m eager to participate and it would have been embarrassing to say something like, “Her entire being radiated with Magiq.” Not that I would say that. Lol. Just an example.
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That is a concise and kind way to put it @Revenir and I appreciate it. The idea that we as a community are heroic, not just the individual. Or else this would become CJ Bernstein’s School For Gifted Youngsters.
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Oh my gosh, I love CJ Bernstein’s School For Gifted Youngsters as a crack fanfiction though 
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Same. I was like… wait a minute
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There’s room in The Creationary for that 
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And don’t forget the competing school, Teddy Fallon’s Academy for Extraordinary Children, now with 50% larger prison cells! 
(I’ll lead myself out)
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Oh Man, the Kemetic Hellfire Club of New York.
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Annnnnd now I’m imagining Teddy Fallon dressed as Magneto.
But yes, I would also highly recommend just interacting with the Forum as yourself. We’re here trying to discover every day a little more about how magiq works together, as a team, and I think that’s best done from your own perspective (more or less).
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