Unfortunately it is one of those things you don't tend to know about until you've encountered it, and then it's too late.
But... I should back up. Presumably, also, you're not aware of a Time War; I certainly wasn't before I encountered the idea. At some point in a future, several centuries out from when you last spoke with Thor and the Loki from your timeline, a man discovered how to travel across branches in the timeline. Alternate realities. Somewhat simultaneously, so did multiple versions of himself, primarily with the same goal as I understand it: to rule them. For all time, always.
Needless to say it was not a pleasant exchange at the end of the day.
( Loki’s words are a faint reminder that this isn’t the same version of Loki he’d once met — for all he knows, perhaps this one is more closely-aligned with putting his boot on Earth’s neck — and perhaps Strange ought to be more aloof, more careful and mistrustful of this man.
But Thedas, too, is a second chance. And Gwenaëlle’s mention of Loki had seemed cordial, and it helps that Stephen’s so desperately interested in this topic. Even if the topic stokes a kind of professional indignation: )
A Time War? Travelled across realities? To rule them? What, like their own universes weren’t enough? Jesus, that’s just greedy.
[ Said with all the concern of someone who is exhausted even thinking about the sort of energy it would take on the day-to-day in order to craft that sort of stonefisted hold on all potential realities. ]
The End of Time, as a... temporal location, I suppose, was probably a late battlefield of that war, or some such thing, I never asked. What was unique about it was that it was where timelines went to die - namely, the remarkable features and people from the timelines considered aberrant from the 'grand design' and material contained therein was all sent to the End of Time, by the time police essentially...
[ Loki makes a noise of consideration, and then takes a breath. ]
I realize, suddenly... I don't know how much of this information is pertinent to you at this time. Because none of that is true anymore. The end of time is more akin to the heart of time, now. Free will thrives. The beast at the end of time can't really feed on any of it anymore.
There’s a lot of information which isn’t technically pertinent to any of us anymore, now that we’re here. And yet I’d still like to know.
( At the prospect of new knowledge, he’s always like a dog with a bone: wants to sink in his teeth, wants to know and understand everything. Even if it’s not true anymore, Strange wants to grasp how it once was. )
Even if hearing it gives me a migraine. Because, I mean. The Masters of the Mystic Arts, the keepers of the Time Stone— our job was to prevent undue influence, to keep our singular timeline from tangling up and gnarling into a knot— if there were others pulling strings that we weren’t even aware of, I don’t know how the fuck to feel about that.
That is part of it, certainly. The rest? A combination of you don't remember anything of this place when you leave it and the multiversal tree, as it stands, is rather well-protected from further unnatural splitting or intrusion.
[ Still. Still. Loki knows something of desiring context regardless of the immediate usefulness of such a project. ]
The man who came out on top of all this forced the timeline he was from... I think?... to be viewed as the only true timeline. Anything that branched off and became a problem to the overarching goals and stories therein was deleted. Destroyed. Immediately dispatched with, by the Time Variance Authority, and anything that remained was shipped off to be fed to Alioth. Because he was from the future, or at least a future point than either of us, he also knew of the Avengers' time traveling in order to deal with the threat of Thanos and his, ah, passion at devising all living beings by half their numbers. A grand plan. He was very good at grand plans, I'll give him that.
When he set up the TVA, he immediately removed all their memories of him and the Time War. They believed they were created by the TVA and that they lived only in service to it.
Honestly, the list of despicable choices made by one man given completely control over the flow of time and possibility is almost impressive.
Strange finds that he has to get up and pace around a little to exorcise the restless buzzing frustrated energy that this knowledge gives him. So there’s the sound of more walking over the crystal, along the docks somewhere, the lonely call of Kirkwall seagulls in the distance. )
This is exactly the sort of thing we were supposed to guard against. No one’s supposed to have that much control over the flow of time— Christ, I feel like we were boxing shadows.
So how did your path cross with them? The TVA, and this man.
When the Avengers traveled back in time to 2012 in order to collect the Tesseract from myself-slash-the Avengers of the past after my... series of missteps in New York. However, in my living of those events, Tony Stark from the future had a heart attack, so I took the Tesseract back and fled - which is the point at which the TVA arrived to collect me.
… Huh. I was dead that whole time, so I missed it; ironically I didn’t actually have anything to do with the time heist directly, I just saw it spinning out successfully—
( But the implications of this draws him up short, literally stopping mid-step. So this Loki was younger, from the past, from shortly after New York. When he’d first approached Loki, it had been under the assumption this was the same one who’d walked in lockstep with Thor and fought by his side and died by his side, and Doctor Strange had extended that graciousness accordingly. But now, well… )
Sorry, I gotta ask an impolitic question about those missteps. Any remaining megalomaniacal impulses? Any lingering animosity towards Avengers-shaped heroes?
[ Okay, but, objectively? It is very hilarious that I was dead that whole time is a thing that these two can say to one another and it actually means something.
At Stephen's self-derailment of that train of thought Loki gives a little noise of curiosity, which in turn he responds with an Ah of comprehension. ]
I forget, also, that you were not here the first time I arrived and thus missed Mr. Stark's insistence that I give him and his a wide berth, whatever else was true. It has been centuries, Doctor. Countless centuries, since I have thought about an Avenger, in really any capacity, before I woke up in this world again.
Much less Thanos, who sent me to Midgard on that particular fool's errand in the first place.
( In terms of an argument which could have instantly swayed him, this is a persuasive one. It could be a lie, but Strange is too tired to even entertain the thought; he’s homesick and tired and would rather they just be able to move onward. So he continues, contemplative: )
One of the things you might learn about me is that I have a longer frame of reference than most mortals. I’ve lived— longer than I should have, experienced countless time loops like a Möbius ( haha ) strip winding in on itself. The Ancient One taught me to think in terms of the bigger picture, the long con. So, I get it. It’s been centuries and you’ve had other problems since. As far as I’m concerned, it’s water under the bridge.
That particular version is dead; he believed in reincarnation, understandably, situated as he was, and he had already destroyed all of his contemporary variants.
In the wake of the truth of what he'd done, the TVA is, now, dedicated to the freedom of all timelines, and as an extension of that dedication is paying close attention to versions of him who might try to revisit the familiar themes, as it were.
Free will is very important. To the TVA as it stands, positioned outside of the streams of time in order to protect them, and to all of reality, truly. Many of those countless centuries I mentioned were in service to that inescapable truth. Controlling others is not the sort of thing I am interested in anymore. I don't really want to be in charge of everything.
That is not to say I am not a person who is often concerned with doing things in the ways that I please. We all have our faults.
I mean, join the club. I only read enough of the rules to decide when I think I can reasonably break them and get away with it.
( Strange hadn’t really devoted much consideration to Loki’s personality traits before, but now it’s maybe a little bit of a surprise that they have a few things in common. )
So that’s— good, I think— so the Men In Black thing isn’t happening anymore? The TVA destroying timelines, dispatching them.
( Such a small sentence, with such big implications.
Strange often wishes that he were able to consult the Ancient One and hear what she thinks. A fallible woman but a wise one, and infinitely more experienced than he was in this remit.
Never moreso than now. Where did his world and universe land in terms of free will? Where did the Masters of the Mystic Arts fall into this plan, of sacred timelines? Had they just been trapped in a box this whole time, administrating nothing? There’s timelines and branches and even, now, wholly separate multiverses, and yet even with time travel, it isn’t technically changing anything. Your past still died; you’re just making a new one. You’re not supposed to change the past. )
Y’know, ( he says, meditatively, ) I gotta say I’m actually a little relieved I’m no longer the official keeper of the Time Stone. All of this information is a mindfuck.
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portalling) wrote2022-04-02 01:17 pm
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no subject
But... I should back up. Presumably, also, you're not aware of a Time War; I certainly wasn't before I encountered the idea. At some point in a future, several centuries out from when you last spoke with Thor and the Loki from your timeline, a man discovered how to travel across branches in the timeline. Alternate realities. Somewhat simultaneously, so did multiple versions of himself, primarily with the same goal as I understand it: to rule them. For all time, always.
Needless to say it was not a pleasant exchange at the end of the day.
no subject
But Thedas, too, is a second chance. And Gwenaëlle’s mention of Loki had seemed cordial, and it helps that Stephen’s so desperately interested in this topic. Even if the topic stokes a kind of professional indignation: )
A Time War? Travelled across realities? To rule them? What, like their own universes weren’t enough? Jesus, that’s just greedy.
no subject
[ Said with all the concern of someone who is exhausted even thinking about the sort of energy it would take on the day-to-day in order to craft that sort of stonefisted hold on all potential realities. ]
The End of Time, as a... temporal location, I suppose, was probably a late battlefield of that war, or some such thing, I never asked. What was unique about it was that it was where timelines went to die - namely, the remarkable features and people from the timelines considered aberrant from the 'grand design' and material contained therein was all sent to the End of Time, by the time police essentially...
[ Loki makes a noise of consideration, and then takes a breath. ]
I realize, suddenly... I don't know how much of this information is pertinent to you at this time. Because none of that is true anymore. The end of time is more akin to the heart of time, now. Free will thrives. The beast at the end of time can't really feed on any of it anymore.
no subject
( At the prospect of new knowledge, he’s always like a dog with a bone: wants to sink in his teeth, wants to know and understand everything. Even if it’s not true anymore, Strange wants to grasp how it once was. )
Even if hearing it gives me a migraine. Because, I mean. The Masters of the Mystic Arts, the keepers of the Time Stone— our job was to prevent undue influence, to keep our singular timeline from tangling up and gnarling into a knot— if there were others pulling strings that we weren’t even aware of, I don’t know how the fuck to feel about that.
So. Tell me everything anyway.
no subject
[ Still. Still. Loki knows something of desiring context regardless of the immediate usefulness of such a project. ]
The man who came out on top of all this forced the timeline he was from... I think?... to be viewed as the only true timeline. Anything that branched off and became a problem to the overarching goals and stories therein was deleted. Destroyed. Immediately dispatched with, by the Time Variance Authority, and anything that remained was shipped off to be fed to Alioth. Because he was from the future, or at least a future point than either of us, he also knew of the Avengers' time traveling in order to deal with the threat of Thanos and his, ah, passion at devising all living beings by half their numbers. A grand plan. He was very good at grand plans, I'll give him that.
When he set up the TVA, he immediately removed all their memories of him and the Time War. They believed they were created by the TVA and that they lived only in service to it.
Honestly, the list of despicable choices made by one man given completely control over the flow of time and possibility is almost impressive.
no subject
Strange finds that he has to get up and pace around a little to exorcise the restless buzzing frustrated energy that this knowledge gives him. So there’s the sound of more walking over the crystal, along the docks somewhere, the lonely call of Kirkwall seagulls in the distance. )
This is exactly the sort of thing we were supposed to guard against. No one’s supposed to have that much control over the flow of time— Christ, I feel like we were boxing shadows.
So how did your path cross with them? The TVA, and this man.
no subject
no subject
( But the implications of this draws him up short, literally stopping mid-step. So this Loki was younger, from the past, from shortly after New York. When he’d first approached Loki, it had been under the assumption this was the same one who’d walked in lockstep with Thor and fought by his side and died by his side, and Doctor Strange had extended that graciousness accordingly. But now, well… )
Sorry, I gotta ask an impolitic question about those missteps. Any remaining megalomaniacal impulses? Any lingering animosity towards Avengers-shaped heroes?
( we good? )
no subject
At Stephen's self-derailment of that train of thought Loki gives a little noise of curiosity, which in turn he responds with an Ah of comprehension. ]
I forget, also, that you were not here the first time I arrived and thus missed Mr. Stark's insistence that I give him and his a wide berth, whatever else was true. It has been centuries, Doctor. Countless centuries, since I have thought about an Avenger, in really any capacity, before I woke up in this world again.
Much less Thanos, who sent me to Midgard on that particular fool's errand in the first place.
no subject
( In terms of an argument which could have instantly swayed him, this is a persuasive one. It could be a lie, but Strange is too tired to even entertain the thought; he’s homesick and tired and would rather they just be able to move onward. So he continues, contemplative: )
One of the things you might learn about me is that I have a longer frame of reference than most mortals. I’ve lived— longer than I should have, experienced countless time loops like a Möbius ( haha ) strip winding in on itself. The Ancient One taught me to think in terms of the bigger picture, the long con. So, I get it. It’s been centuries and you’ve had other problems since. As far as I’m concerned, it’s water under the bridge.
So. What happened to this temporal dictator?
/wheezing at the timestamps on this jfc
In the wake of the truth of what he'd done, the TVA is, now, dedicated to the freedom of all timelines, and as an extension of that dedication is paying close attention to versions of him who might try to revisit the familiar themes, as it were.
Free will is very important. To the TVA as it stands, positioned outside of the streams of time in order to protect them, and to all of reality, truly. Many of those countless centuries I mentioned were in service to that inescapable truth. Controlling others is not the sort of thing I am interested in anymore. I don't really want to be in charge of everything.
That is not to say I am not a person who is often concerned with doing things in the ways that I please. We all have our faults.
no subject
( Strange hadn’t really devoted much consideration to Loki’s personality traits before, but now it’s maybe a little bit of a surprise that they have a few things in common. )
So that’s— good, I think— so the Men In Black thing isn’t happening anymore? The TVA destroying timelines, dispatching them.
no subject
It is not, no. They are wholly focused on preserving a timeline's ability to thrive, and Free Will.
no subject
Strange often wishes that he were able to consult the Ancient One and hear what she thinks. A fallible woman but a wise one, and infinitely more experienced than he was in this remit.
Never moreso than now. Where did his world and universe land in terms of free will? Where did the Masters of the Mystic Arts fall into this plan, of sacred timelines? Had they just been trapped in a box this whole time, administrating nothing? There’s timelines and branches and even, now, wholly separate multiverses, and yet even with time travel, it isn’t technically changing anything. Your past still died; you’re just making a new one. You’re not supposed to change the past. )
Y’know, ( he says, meditatively, ) I gotta say I’m actually a little relieved I’m no longer the official keeper of the Time Stone. All of this information is a mindfuck.