The New Guy

Viper here.

I'm going to do it. I'm going to write about our new friend Blackheart, even though I was the least connected to it showing back up. Because I can! This is the first time we've knowingly taken on a new member, even though it actually happened more than a year ago. We've had to change a little bit about how we think of ourselves. On the other hand, it takes up very little space, so it hasn't changed our dynamic really at all. But it exists, and that matters.

There were fires around here in August. This has been happening more and more lately because the world in general, but this was the first time we had a wildfire close enough to our home that we had to think about it in relation to ourselves and our immediate loved ones. Short version is that we were never directly affected beyond poor air quality, we had a plan in place if we needed to evacuate, and it's all fine now. BUT AT THE TIME getting constant updates of advisories and evacuations fucked us up big time, and even Trinket wasn't doing good. And that's when it came back. It actually happened twice, on two consecutive days, for about an hour each time. Once it felt like we were doing well enough, it dropped out and let July take over again.

It was a lot like the first time, but also very different. We, all of us, understood now that it was an alter and it existed in a permanent, factual kind of way. It might be difficult for you to put yourself in its shoes: it has our same memories and knowledge, but it was now fully aware for the first time that it existed. It could feel and be bothered by our emotions, even if it was viewing them entirely meat reactions to stimulus. It was a little overwhelmed, truthfully, and even it could tell it needed something philosophical to keep going.

It chatted with a friend of ours a tiny bit as itself. The excuse was that it knew we'd want them to know, and that's certainly true, but I think it had its own desire to be known a little bit. Hiding sucks, and as a purely logical being, Blackheart is practical enough to see that. What it gained from the conversation was something like enjoyment.

What it feels towards us is more like duty than friendship. I suppose that's a kind of love, too. It messed around with the idle game we had up and opened a friends' twitch stream when it started out of the knowledge that these were things we value. At some point, because we hadn't had the appetite to eat anything, it made a sandwich. It did all these ordinary things, but I can't quite describe how it wasn't really getting its own enjoyment from them. It rejected the notion of being involved with just about anything fun because it wasn't comfortable with that. But it understands that those things are important. That those things are part of its own existence as well.

It grew a bit, though. It changed because it had to. Before it logged off for what turned out to be the last time we needed it during the incident, it decided to be more than a drone. It decided that it was more like a hound. It made the decision to treasure our happiness as its own, and decided it would protect that happiness when it was needed. I dunno, maybe this doesn't come across clearly, but even though it still has the same job, the framing matters for finding inner peace. So, now I have carte blanche to come up with a design for it, and I've been working on that. A noble and sleek dog who lives in our shadow. That is the nature of our friend Blackheart.

I dunno if we mentioned that but yeah the pun in its name came from playing a lot of Marvel vs Capcom 2 and liking the character with that name in that. So its named after a Ghost Rider villain we know nothing about. Don't read too much into any of this, we didn't know it was a person at the time.