It looks like the Collective might be subdividing again in some funky form, because of all of the parenthetical notes we've been having lately. It feels entirely natural, which is scary. The new bits aren't entirely new, and feel somewhat cross between Naomi and Dagger. ...Oh. Her name, surprisingly enough, is Joan. Which is odd, because we haven't had a legal-name personality in a long, long time. But this is what happens when I answer to a name in a specific environment: a personality develops to cover the contingencies.
I'm Azz. I've answered to Azz approximately since the big merger back in '01. The quirky side of the merger was what came out on top. The quirky side was the name that got registered as the new identity on assorted message boards and on LJ, so that was what the new side of me started answering to. I often feel like I live on the internet. I can be me here, and my face-to-face interactions with most people are the masked and forced bits. The current baseline self of the Collective, though, is the self we can be around Darkside. hat's who we rebuilt to after the BJ disaster and the subsequent merger in '01. (Relative addressing on the date. (You are such a geek.) Yes.) (Parenthetical comments to parenthetical comments? Whatever floats your boat.) Baseline self is generally called Joanie, or Lunatic, that being how I get addressed in private. But most of the time, I'm Azz. Name comes from what I answer to. I'm Azz.
But my work-self is Joan, and is no less valid than the rest of us. It's very weird to feel a different flavor creeping into the thoughts, to have the normal train of thought intruded upon with a whisper more like a mental nudge in the ribs and closed-captioning than an actual audible voice.
For almost half my life, "I" have been "us".
