The Shimmer Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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theshimmer2020-08-01 11:41 pm
shimmermods) wrote in theshimmer2020-08-01 11:41 pm
WEEK THREE
THIRD WEEK
While very few things have been made entirely clear since you've been here, one thing certainly seems to have been: there are no more survivors. There's no one else to watch out for, but there's no one that you're going to be able to save, either.
You are truly and utterly on your own.
With two of your number injured, it's likely that this isn't a welcome thought; it also means that the going may be slower than anyone would really like. Unfortunate, as this is where the hike starts becoming more difficult; it isn't particularly treacherous - there are no steep dropoffs or cliffs to be wary of, and it is still hiking more than climbing - but the paths are becoming steeper, requiring more exertion to traverse. It will give you time, however, to pay attention to your surroundings, and the way they start to shift around you - almost as though in response to your presence itself.
It's simple things at first - a familiar flower, a plant you used to see all the time back home. Perhaps it will even feel nostalgic for a moment before you realize that it has no business being here. Some of the changes are small - glasswing butterflies with wings the shades and colors of real stained glass, beetles with their hard backs glittering in jewel tones that serve no real purpose. Occasionally the bark of the nearby trees have cracked open, wood splitting to reveal inner mechanisms and gears like clockwork.
Some of the changes are reflected in you as well - or perhaps Wesker's words simply have you thinking too much. The notion that the Shimmer resides in you seems impossible; after all, you don't feel any different.
It begs the question, though.
Have your fingerprints always moved like that?
SUNDAY | MONDAY |
TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY | FRIDAY
You are truly and utterly on your own.
With two of your number injured, it's likely that this isn't a welcome thought; it also means that the going may be slower than anyone would really like. Unfortunate, as this is where the hike starts becoming more difficult; it isn't particularly treacherous - there are no steep dropoffs or cliffs to be wary of, and it is still hiking more than climbing - but the paths are becoming steeper, requiring more exertion to traverse. It will give you time, however, to pay attention to your surroundings, and the way they start to shift around you - almost as though in response to your presence itself.
It's simple things at first - a familiar flower, a plant you used to see all the time back home. Perhaps it will even feel nostalgic for a moment before you realize that it has no business being here. Some of the changes are small - glasswing butterflies with wings the shades and colors of real stained glass, beetles with their hard backs glittering in jewel tones that serve no real purpose. Occasionally the bark of the nearby trees have cracked open, wood splitting to reveal inner mechanisms and gears like clockwork.
Some of the changes are reflected in you as well - or perhaps Wesker's words simply have you thinking too much. The notion that the Shimmer resides in you seems impossible; after all, you don't feel any different.
It begs the question, though.
Have your fingerprints always moved like that?
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[ If anyone there understood his ideals it was Garma, Garma thinks - which is more something that weirds him out right now than anything to brag about.
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[...Kimbley.]
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More or less. I mean, he did declare himself God, so he was accordingly haughty. Otherwise, we had a surprisingly pleasant conversation.
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[Like, also a mess and definitely an eldritch terror, but sometimes that's the tradeoff for being a good time, he supposes.]
You couldn't pay me enough to do whatever he was doing, though. With the whole...being obviously undead thing. Whenever I go, I want it to just be done and over with.
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[ And even though he understands the principle behind its spread perfectly well, that thought has been unsettling him all day. All the moss was... a lot. ]
Coming back after being killed seemed to be mostly specific to him rather than the Shimmer, at least. But that just means we don't quite know what will happen to us.
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[He shrugs a bit.]
That sounds more or less like what we signed up for.
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[ That's as far as he can go in admitting that yes, his optimism at the start of the mission was vastly misplaced and Kimbley was right. ]
The next step of evolution should be considered a good thing, but... it looks eerie, more than anything.
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[ Oh good god. That explains a lot and. Wow. Okay, where does he even start. Going from 1915 in Anno Domino to 0079 in the Universal Century would be... a lecture of several days, so he'll condense it. Maybe it's better to not touch on some of this anyway. It's all very... you got a big storm coming.
Garma actually sits up properly now, so hey! There's that! ]
To make a long story short, in my time we've migrated a large part of the Earth population to Space Colonies because mankind polluted Earth so much that remaining on the planet risks rendering it entirely uninhabitable. The people sent out were largely the then-poor, while the privileged were allowed to remain. The colonies were not independent, leading to large economic dependence and continuing bad living conditions.
Yet there was a branch of philosophy that cropped up in space that proposed that going to space and ridding ourselves of the ties of gravity would actually trigger mankind to finally change once more and turn to the next stage of human evolution. These proposed new beings were called Newtypes and would exhibit psychic ability leading to better performance as well as increased understanding of one another. Instead of continuing down the same self-destructive path mankind has taken on Earth, life in space would advance us to a new and more enlightened species.
[ Okay, phew, that was already a lot and he feels he barely scratched the surface. Garma runs a hand through his fringe. ]
What Wesker proposed was roughly equivalent to this. He also thought of mankind as stagnant and self-sabotaging, believing that the changed conditions of the Shimmer would trigger a transformation to lifeforms that are more advanced and will change for the better.
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um]
...That sounds a lot like you guys just don't want to deal with the problems you caused yourselves, so you're just going to become something else instead and wash your hands of the whole thing. Unless I'm completely missing something.
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[ But he doesn't sound too defensive here. ]
I admit, I never got too into the whole philosophical aspect of it. The current struggle is about claiming independence from Earth so we can better living conditions for Spacenoids. My older brother leads the war effort, he's a lot more into the idea of Spacenoids as inherently superior.
[ Garma is just here because he doesn't know where else to be and also because he thinks the citizens leading better lives generally... sounds good? He's engaged to an Earthnoid, in the end. ]
What Wesker was saying just reminded me a lot of this same theory... I was a little taken aback to see it in such a different form.
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[This does not seem to be a fact that bothers him.]
I'm not a complicated person like that. Never really the sort to be invested in what happens to society and all that. The world will keep turning after I die, and I'm fine with that.
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It's my family that declared war on Earth. I never had the option of not caring. In a lot of ways, my path was always laid out for me as part of something bigger.
Did nobody ever foster expectations like that onto you?
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People don't turn out like me if anyone gives a damn about them or how they end up, Garma. Let's put it that way.
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I'd offer condolences, but that is likely the last thing a man like you wants or needs.
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[And again, that does seem to be genuine.]
My parents were pretty thrilled that I turned out to have talent with alchemy. Especially in a discipline as complex as mine. If I had to be crazy, at least I was smart and crazy. Treated me like shit, but at least they had something to pretend to be proud of.
They died when my sister and I were still pretty young. I went off to join the military as soon as I was old enough. Went to war soon after that. That's it, that's the whole backstory. No grand design, no real reason for existing, no real desire to keep on doing that other than maybe to spite people.
I don't know if that's better or worse than whatever you've got going on, and I'm not too interested in arguing that point. It just kind of is what it is, you know?
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The two of them really could not be more different. Being the genius child, being abandoned... Both is far from Garma's lived reality. He's a boy smothered by family, yet trying desperately to make himself seen among more shrewd siblings. ]
What happened to your sister?
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... I see. You don't miss her?
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If we actually make it out of here, you should try to see what kind of woman she's become.
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[So there's that.]
Anyway, I should probably let you get back to the not-dying process. You going to be okay?
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[ At the very least, he's confident now that he can properly breathe again and probably get up, too. That's a pretty big achievement compared to how Kimbley found him.
It's hard to say if talking about the whole philosophy deal has really helped him sort it out, but at the very least the attitude of complete dismissal was very effective in making him less concerned about it.
He's smiling, still. ]
Thanks.
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[Aaand up he goes, god only knows where he plans on going for the evening.]
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[ ... he does not, actually. ]