intfiction.org

I noticed recently that Emily Short alias Boegheim has a game running in the comp called "It" and at the same time reviewing other IFComp 2011 games at her blog during the competition. I find that somewhat strange.

Now I may be not familiar with the way things are being handled each year during the competition when you participate as a author, since you know, I never have took part in the IFComp and don't intend to, because of that "no porn allowed" thing.

And I don't really want to troll, freak or rant about it or make an issue of it. Whatever. But I just wonder.

So IFComp 2011 authors are allowed to review other IFComp 2011 games during the comp and thus trying to influence their opinions on games to judges?

That's on a par with the rules, right? Can someone shed light on this?

Emily Short is not Emily Boegheim.

Maybe in some parallel universe, Emily Boegheim and Emily Short are the same person, but not in this one

Oh.. thanks, guys.

Stupid me. I should have known. People with similiar names sound all the same to me. lol

Yes, the parallel universe effect kind of kicks in sometimes.

Somewhere, perhaps, there exists a universe (parallel or otherwise) in which we are all one.

Robert Rothman

Though I wish I were.

_________________
Emily Boegheim

I don't even understand what it means to wish to be a different person? If you were not yourself, it wouldn't be you that was not yourself. If you see what I mean.

(Also: love yourself. It is the one commandment -- the others follow necessarily. Not that I endorse a morality of commandments.)

No, no, no. I've grown quite fond of that pony avatar

The statement is based on an assumption that a person may be separated into (at least) two units: One that is easily observed and (the speaker assumes) extrinsic to the person (in this case, Emily Short's success in the field of putting words together into increasingly complex formations, as well as the legions of fans associated with said success), and one that is hidden, inalienable, the "point of view" that experiences in full detail a given life while insisting on its distinctness from that life.

Emily Boegheim here states a desire that her experiencing "I" be associated, instead of with the experienced "I" she has grown to know all too well over the years, with the experienced "I" that we all know Emily Short is constantly experiencing all the time. This could be accomplished in manners as mundane as your Prince and Pauper setup, or ridiculous as a Freaky Friday scenario, or as disturbing as a Being John Malkovich thing, with a tiny door.

I admit I am putting words in Boegheim's mouth. It might be that she is already perfectly satisfied with the experienced "I" she's already got, and just wishes that her last name were Shorter.

_________________
we gotta move these refrigerators

But this assumption is, of course, false. No experience is neutral; all experience is shaped by our own history, personality, mood, thoughts, and everything else that constitutes our Self. If I were somehow bodily swapped with Emily, and someone came to me to thank me for writing Alabaster, I certainly would not have the same experience that she would have. (For one thing, I could not possibly be proud of my accomplishment, but would feel acutely ashamed for impersonating someone else.) The Self may (and does) transcend the actual actions and experiences of our life, but it is not independent from them.