"Hello, Roy," said the barefoot Author. "Why so glum?"
Well, I was hoping to have JH and Raoul Duke on before you, but JH was taciturn to the point of total silence, leaving me with little to do but interview myself, or else someone else. And Duke hasn't even taken up his option.
"Don't take it too much to heart. Duke's rather like JH in his opinion of such things, or at least has been in the past. Did you know he once faked suicide and abandoned his suite just to keep his avatar from being used in Backstage threads?"
Yes, in fact, I believe Deja Voodoo recently posted something reminding us of that. Something about reading Jim's family tree apparently sent Duke over the edge, as I recall.
"Understandable. Have you seen Jim's family tree?"
(Roy shudders.) It's a piece of work, all right.
"Still, Duke seems to have relented somewhat about appearing in meta-threads lately. So you never know. Why don't you keep the option open and see if he bites?"
I'll do that. But I notice you've adroitly steered the conversation away from anything to do with you, and it's you I'd really like to talk about at the moment.
"Sure thing. If you'll excuse me, briefly..." Dabbler gets up to leave.
Huh? Where are you going?
"Just fixing an oversight in a parallel thread. Seems I've been double-optioned for this interview -- guess I'm more popular than I thought. And since you don't want to end up with two of me..." Leaving, he meets himself coming back. "Hi, Dabbler, I was just leaving. Feel free to take up where we left off."
"Thanks," says Dabbler, "I'll do that." The first Dabbler leaves, and the second sits down in his place. "Now then," he says to Roy, "I believe you wanted to talk about me..."
Uh, right, I guess. Why don't we start with what just happened here. Are there really two of you, or was that just some sort of weird illusion.
"The short answer is yes."
Come again?
"Too late, I already did. I mean, the answer's both. I have one original, but at any one time any number of my aspects -- avatars, if you will -- may be optioned and functioning in the AddVenture. But we're all me. The appearance of multiplicity is indeed illusory."
I didn't understand a word of that.
"It's the same with you, Roy. There are any number of open threads right now with you as the protagonist. Just because you're also here interviewing me doesn't make the 'yous' in those threads any less valid -- or any less you. But they only appear independent of the 'you' that's here and now. You're all the same person."
Uh, okay, I guess. Um, I think we're getting side-tracked again...
"You've got questions about me? I've got answers. Fire away!"
Go back - Go to the parent episode.
Wed Sep 26 12:41:21 2001
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