You can take the girl away from the dragon but…

I tend to have one on one relationships with people; I never really have come even remotely close to the whole Friends or Sex and the City thing.

I think this is probably partly personality – extroverted enough to want to hang out; introverted enough that large groups are tiring – and quite a lot multiple. When one is a non-selves-aware multiple in one’s formative teen years, one develops these habits – or at least we did – to cut down on the mental confusion and noise, don’t mix JJ’s friends with Karen’s friends with Shandra’s friends.

Actually, come to think of it, I did run with a lovely group in high school, but I always had intense friendships completely apart from the group and was therefore absent for a lot of group things. So I felt like Stanford the gay friend, really. Or one of Ross’s other girlfriends.

Anyways, maybe because of this I occasionally have this egoistical game in my head that’s kind of like that 25 things about me meme that’s been running around the Internet, and it’s “little Shandra-isms that people could bond over, would I ever actually connect them to speak together.” (The obsession with “how do I look from the outside” also comes from being multiple. And human. Bummer.)

All of which is a preamble to: If people have primarily known me via PernMUSH, they would probably have noticed a little me tonight.

I’ve been merrily playing a new character avec dragon, but with a light hand. I always admired people who played PernMUSH lightly and without weirdo multiple bullshit psychodrama. (*cough*) And actually, truly, no weirdo multiple bullshit on the horizon. It’s been lovely and calm and creative.

Even this next part (despite appearances, because you see, I’m laughing about it) which is that tonight one of the other characters decided to kind of vaguely piss off my dragon. (Pern has dragons. Big dragons. Who love their riders. And possibly tolerate other humans.)

Which I’ve intellectually never really thought is a good idea; I mean I know when I go to the zoo and sit and watch the tigers, who are only yea big, somewhere deep in my brain there’s a little nonverbal bit that is saying “look out for tigers!” and I have to assume that were my hindbrain in the presence of massive reptilian predator, my first instinct would not be to say something inflammatory. (The dragons understand language, or at least thought. It’s complicated. Not sure I recommend the books wholeheartedly at this stage.)

But my – shall we say – thing with this is not merely intellectual. Lemarath is a dragon and our totem spirit.

(Actually I could not really accept any religion that would not accept her role; she might be an angel, all the wings and gold and shit; she could be a form of a goddess or perhaps a resident of Teresa of Avila’s interior castle’s wild woods.) (I don’t know that Teresa of Avila had wild woods, but if she didn’t, she should have.)

So, you know. Diss her, deal with me. Not that anyone playing a game should really have to engage with this, but it’s still something I bristle about.

So tonight: Dragon character, idiot (hrumph) calling down the wrath of angels, dragon. I had that moment of being thrust sort of – not OUT of the scene; OUT of the scene implies back to things like oh, my desk is messy. More like further into the scene. And I’m afraid my character came out a little… Shandra-like. And my dragon came out… a little Lemarath-like. People who know me probably would have caught it.

I realize all this is weird. But it is my head too. It really is like finding a weird third arm that only plays the… spinet, or something.