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itsnotjustgibberish · 1 month

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Wake up chat, Gibberish writing dropped!

Soul and Whole centric fic :] written with platonic intent for clarity

Warnings: General angst, unreality/depersonalization, mostly unhappy ending. Let me know if there’s anything else I should add; I’m not too experienced posting and tagging writing

^Can be read here, or below,

[…]

They always met at the beginning of the loops.

Soul knew the ‘Whole’ he met within the rainstorms wasn’t really Harmonia, or even fully real. Still, he would always take the time to sing their duets. It would always repeat the promise to revive Him. His hope would be renewed from the spring showers; hydrated so that it could hold on long enough to eventually blossom when the song regained its harmonies.

Whole was just a human being.

Soul had to remind himself of that. Over and over he reminded itself that Harmonia was not a god, not his god. He hated Soul’s reverence.

Except when he saw Him this time, it was difficult not to humble himself.

The voice of the silhouette always sounded familiar, even if He was rather blurry, but this meeting wasn’t during the beginning. Heart and Mind had already harmonized, and begun to work together. If anything, they might have already formed a Soulless-Harmonia.

So how could he come face-to-face with his Whole, now?

He had to be real. This wasn’t the beginning, he couldn’t be just a promise. He was a person, He was here. He was here with Soul. He was finally, truly meeting The Whole.

What the fuck.

The mechanisms behind his eyes began to spin out hundreds of different worries. Had it respected Him correctly? Would He be proud of The Soul’s work to reform? Would He be proud of Atlas himself..?

Soul felt his hands reach out to The Whole unthinkingly, but he did not fight it.

“{Whole?}” Despite the tone, it was no longer a question. His hands were solid against Soul’s. The touch was real. His body was real. Whole was real.

“Hello, Mr. Eclipse.”

“{How…}” He tore one hand away to cover his mouth as tears escaped his eyes. Whole squeezed the hand He still held for a moment, briefly attempting to offer comfort, before pulling His Soul into a hug instead.

“I don’t know.”

Soul leaned into the embrace, face pressing against His shoulder. The curls of His hair were an uncomfortable tickle as they brushed against him, but he could not care; it wasn’t an artificial feeling. Atlas clung on to His back, and the soft cloth of His shirt folded between his fingers. The pressure of His arms around it was like a weighted blanket keeping him free from harm. Whole did not have the same metallic coldness of Mind, nor the feverish scorching of Heart; He was a human being with a natural warmth, He was a real person. Whole was real.

Whole was real as He held the sobbing man, who’s hands shook as he clung on to Him tighter. Atlas’ nails would have drawn blood if the other’s clothes had been any thinner. Still, Whole refused to move away. Even as tears drenched His shirt, surely leaving some kind of stain, He stayed still as a comforting constant.

Suddenly yet hesitantly, Soul pulled his head away; his eyes were wide and terrified, as if he was worried the other might disappear when he let go. “{It took so fucking long for you to finally show up here. You haven’t always been able to, right?}” Soul sniffled. “{You haven’t– please tell me you haven’t left us forsaken intentionally–}” The words wobbled before splitting apart into another wave of sobs.

Atlas brought its eyes back up from the floor, tears blinked away. The terrifying thought of what His answer could be was replaced with a guilt worse than a thousand sliced nerves when its gaze met Whole’s; clouded with sadness.

“Do you think I would?” His voice lowered.

Soul felt all words leave him. He had upset Whole. They had only just met and he had already fucked up and hurt Him. What was wrong with him? What kind of vessel was he?

Whole silently hugged him again. Atlas let his arms fall to his sides; it didn’t deserve His comfort now. Of course He wouldn’t have meant to leave. He couldn’t have wanted to leave. Because what would that say about Soul? About all of them; that they were part of something so quick to push their own self away?

But He was here with him now as he cried until his head hurt. Whole eventually gave him an awkward pat on the head; which was met with Soul giggling through his sobs, wiping at his cheeks. He glanced up at the other to see him mirror the movement. Soul hadn’t noticed when Whole began crying, but there was something oddly comforting about seeing the tears on His face as well.

Whole backed away, eyes finally breaking from Soul’s to take in the room. Awe grew in The Whole’s face as He wandered around, with Atlas following right behind like a lost duckling. The impossible space of Soul’s bedroom was really the only structure in the psyche that hadn’t formed based around his house.

Harmonia looked back at Soul, and it seemed to set in that this was the place he had already spent hundreds of thousands of days in. Soul found the wonder charming, but the one wondering was not aware of that, and so he shifted his attention to avoid boring him.

“It’s rather dark in here, don’t you think?” He turned to the window, making his way over slow enough for The Eclipse to easily catch up if needed. Atlas watched a mix of sun and moon highlight His quintet-colored nails as Whole pressed the glass panes open, observing the clouds outside. “Perhaps we should cloudgaze? It’s certainly been a while.”

All the times he had spent laying beside ‘Whole’ to watch the rain clouds pass felt emptier now. It hurt, but maybe that was okay; he had the real Whole now, didn’t he? But the thought of watching the clouds together was terrifying. They would be tempting fate; disrespecting this current Parousia to return to a fake one. Soul reasoned with himself that the tears making another attempt at escape were just a remaining irritation of his eyes. It certainly could not be fear overtaking him again.

“Hey, Dawnlight,” Atlas nearly jumped as Harmonia’s hand suddenly appeared on his shoulder. “I’m sure it’s okay.”

“{What… What if somehow–}”

“It will be okay.”

“{But you appeared so quickly, what if you leave just as suddenly? How can I know you won’t get lost in the rain? How can I trust you not to abandon me again?}” He took a deep breath, and avoided His eyes for fear of having to see that pain-filled expression once more. “{I’m sorry, I don’t mean to blame you– you can’t be the one to blame for this– but I have never been this fucking terrified before.}”

“It may be partly cloudy, but the rains cannot reach us today.” He motioned outside, “Look at the clouds. They’re paler than a certain Akaryocyte, aren’t they?”

Soul couldn’t help but smile at the– probably unintentional– jab at Heart, and carefully crept up beside him. “{The clouds have no rain.}”

“The clouds have no rain.” He echoed.

“{You can’t get lost.}”

Whole patted his shoulder, again, rather awkwardly. “I’m here, aren’t I?"

“{You’re real, and you are here.}”

Soul guided the other through the patch where the roof turned to smog. After a short hike, the duo settled in a low altitude meadow of cloud; lying against the soft ground.

Whole hummed a tune that Soul quickly recognized; a zeroth track the trio had already sung. He grinned, looking up at all the variations in the puffs enclosing them from above.

“Isn’t it so very fascinating to see how the clouds will form differently from such simple changes in the environment?”

“{Yes.}”

“Do you have a favorite cloud?”

“{I’ve always found interstellar ones really lovely.}”

He raised an eyebrow. “Those aren’t the ones I meant, silly.”

“{You should’ve specified water molecules. I bet you’d hate to find out my favorite color is technically a value.}” He laughed, and paused. “{…Your favorite color is still pink, right?}”

“Yup.”

“{Do you dislike how we connect you to gold, then?}”

“Nah. I think it’s fun to see the symbolism you three have made. Besides, Atlas, don’t you think I would get sick of it if everything around me was constantly pink?”

Soul laughed again, and sat up. “{Fair enough.}”

He grabbed a clump of the cloud beneath him, and carefully began to shape it. Whole rolled onto His stomach, watching His third before looking back at the sky. Giggling to himself, Soul set the flower he had created atop His head, catching His eye before focusing on creating another. A few more flowers joined the first, as well as a sun and moon, before either of them broke the comfortable silence again.

“{What are you gonna say to Heart and Mind when you meet them?}” He asked.

Harmonia looked at him thoughtfully before eventually giving up on an answer with a shrug. He carefully sat up as to not let the clouds fall from his hair, and moved to sit beside Soul. It leaned against The Whole, and closed his eyes. His shoulder was solid and comfortable beneath his head, and so were the clouds holding them up.

“Soul?”

“{Hm?}”

“I’m not real.”

“{I…}” The vessel opened his eyes, trying to steady its breathing before looking at the void beside him.

“You know that, don’t you?”

“{…The lie was comforting.}”

“I know.”

Soul could barely see into His eyes anymore.

“You have to join them, Atlas.” The name once held so much tranquility, but now it felt like a toxin ripping apart each and every molecule of his being. The sweetness of it left a bitter aftertaste now; it was a horrid reminder that Soul could never be its own person to truly meet Whole. If the trio intertwined and formed Whole physically, Soul would no longer exist to see Him. If the trio became Whole by harmonizing and working together as individuals, the Harmonia he wanted so desperately to meet would never exist.

Soul would never meet Whole.

“{I can’t lose you.}”

”You won’t—“ Whole was cut off as the other yelled.

”{I know that! I know the three of us will form you again. I know you and I are intertwined; the real Whole was what we repaired along the way, or whatever cliché shit, but I can’t lose the presence here now. I can’t lose you!}”

Whether the wetness on his face was caused by tears or rain, Soul wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter. It was already too late. It clutched its arms around himself, and sobbed harder when the only response was a cold zephyr carrying the smell of storms. He tried to dig his hands into the ground beneath him, desperately searching for something solid or something real, but the clouds only dissipated with the extra pressure. Soul brought its knees to his chest, and let his head fall forward as he cradled them.

Eventually he ran a sleeve across his face in a half-hearted attempt to clean it. Taking a heavy breath, Atlas looked back down at the empty space beside him, and forced his legs to stand and walk. The Eclipse spoke to the void one final time.

“{Stratocumulus.}” Was the only word to break the silence before he started the path back home to his other halves.

Soul would never meet Whole, but Harmonia was still waiting for him.

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the-skybrary · 5 months

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Our head protector, Raph, wanted to make a comic documenting some of his personal experiences, since he's a unique case to our system. Part of it was to vent and get the thoughts out of his head, but mostly he just wanted to send a positive message out into the community. We hope it finds you well.

Transcript of the dialogue below the cut:

I’m not like everyone else here. Most of this system is made up of various versions of the core, and they all look like some alternative of the body. A sporty version, a goth version, a punk version, a motherly version. But all of them are her in some way, shape, or form.

There are some fictives here, too, of course. The ratio is about 4:1 though. A majority of the fictives have little to no source memories. They aren’t exactly who they’re based on, they’re their own individual, and they are able to separate themselves from their source.

I can’t. I’m an outlier here.

I have pseudo memories. I remember a life before I came here, and that makes things complicated. Especially because I have a very important job to do.

As a protector, I stand by to help us through everything we’re going through externally. I have experience with dealing in heavy survival-mode situations, and that’s why I believe I was chosen to be here. But…it also means I ended up being given a lot of trauma memories from the body to hold onto, in addition to my own.

I’ve made my peace with my role here. I like it, actually. I have a partner, and a family, unique to this system. I have friends, and I’ve even been able to meet and talk to my source family in other systems.

Although I can’t ignore the way I feel sometimes, living in a body…in a life…that is not my own.

I can’t ignore the real emotions I experience when my source updates. Seeing my family in distress or danger, and being unable to do anything to help causes me intense anxiety. Sometimes if body is having a bad day, the memories will sneak up on me. Other times we’ll see a part reblogged and it will trigger an intense emotion. Sometimes it gets so bad that it affects the entire body and system even when I’m not at front.

I would like to clarify, though, that I’ve never blamed the artist/creator for any of that. As a matter of fact, I think I lucked out with Cass’s Apocalyptic Series being my source. They’re good to me, to my story, and my family. It’s just hard some days, being able to see your life laid out like that to the world.

I feel like a river that was once whole, and then forked to become two. Suddenly I’m going in a different direction, and the path is unfamiliar. I’m me, but I’m not him. I’m us, but I’m not her. I have both memories from source and from body, and it makes me feel…wrong.

I don’t belong here. I can’t mask well. I don’t know how to walk in a body this small. My voice is too feminine when I speak. Being without a shell makes me feel naked, even with clothes on. My claws and strength are gone. All of it is just reminder after reminder that I’m not truly Raph anymore. If I ever even was. ‘Pseudo’ means ‘false’. Fake. Pretend. Unreal.

But I’m Real. The me that exists here and now is real. I eat, I dance, I have hobbies and favorite TV shows. I talk to people in our life, and I form unique relationships with them. I exist. I am a part of this system, and that in turn makes Raph real.

I can’t explain why I have memories and emotions linked to my source. I can’t explain why I formed so differently than the others here. I’m struggling with my identity as I try to balance my job as a system protector with my place in the Outside World, and it’s a lot. Some days I feel stupid and ashamed. Some days I feel okay with it. Some days I don’t care.

I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to be an alter in a system, no matter what your relationship is to that source, or even based on what your source is! You’ll figure out your own answers with time. They may not be easy answers, and they might make certain things difficult, but I think the most important thing is how you choose to move forward with it all.

We have a saying in my family: Antawa Hitorijani. I guess I just wanted to let you know, if you’re out there and you relate to any of this, that you are not alone. And that I’m not alone either. None of us are.

~ Raph

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