if i look back, i am lost
Claire Keane
⁂
★
Stranger Things
official daine visual archive
sheepfilms
ellievsbear
🪼
d e v o n
Peter Solarz
wallacepolsom
taylor price
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
Kaledo Art
Discoholic 🪩
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
Cosmic Funnies
🩵 avery cochrane 🩵
cherry valley forever
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Singapore
seen from United States
seen from India
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Colombia
seen from Canada
seen from Colombia
seen from India
seen from Malaysia
seen from Vietnam
seen from Japan
seen from United States
@theomakhist
.we can't | all just snap .our fingers | and .transcend our de | sign.
#theomakhist, (from theomachist. n. thēˈäməkə̇st): one who resists god or the gods or the divine will. a low maintenance, chill activity and very private fantasy &. sci - fi multimuse. 21+, primarily and extremely crossover focused &. friendly. carrd. even if we've previously been mutuals before, kindly do not follow me first.
fated weapons. lasthail.
Ghost: Objects from a different time were sent to us, like we were called or invited. Did you get one too? Lodi: Uh... of sorts? I got a call of my own.
the down days [2/2].
dialogue prompts from the down days by ilze hugo.
it was so worth it, wasn't it?
i'm not an extrovert like you. i need my space.
always the comedian, aren't you?
are you ready to be a martyr? do the right thing?
denial is practically my middle name.
i got into this to help people.
i promised myself i'd never look back.
i just work here.
i've done my research. i know the law.
find what you're looking for?
you're acting suspicious as fuck.
you think you're invincible, don't you?
you're not crazy. you're grieving.
is this 'fuck with me' friday?
have you started smoking again?
ray of sunshine alert.
your _____ seems like it's really bothering you today. you keep grimacing.
cross your heart and hope to die?
you're in a better mood. what happened?
i've just gained some perspective on a few things, is all.
i have to do everything to keep you safe, even if it seems crazy.
cold feet? if you keep walking, they'll warm up.
i'm turning into my mother.
let's pretend none of this happened and move on, okay?
i can't believe i trusted you.
hear me out. i can explain.
i'm nobody's darling, darling.
i really don't see how you can dig your way out of this one.
if i had to give myself a label, it would be 'hopesmith'.
you don't have to believe in something to be an expert in it.
hope isn't free. it always comes at a cost.
seriously. i can't take you anywhere.
there's no such thing as luck. or fate. or choosing your own reality in seven different colors and sizes with free shipping via amazon, or whatever.
you just can't help yourself, can you?
i'm sorry. i'm being an ass again, aren't i?
you look like you're having a rough week. can i buy you a coffee?
no strings, just caffeine. it's a sin to say no to a free cup of coffee.
spirits for the spirit, as my uncle used to say.
i like solving puzzles. the more difficult, the better.
some weeds can't be pruned, my gran used to say. their roots run too deep.
always the comedian, aren't you?
you keep tapping your nails against the table. i can't concentrate.
i'm guessing this isn't a social call.
i prefer to kick it old school, thank you very much.
you've been hiding from the hurt for too long. it's consuming you.
people lie all the time, for all sorts of reasons.
i do my best thinking on my feet.
i could do with a good caped crusader, right now.
i could do with a good saving. not a knight, though. no shining armor, thanks. and no horses, either.
i don't know anymore where 'now' begins and 'then' ends.
i know who you are. i've seen you.
i've never been good with uncomfortable silences.
this isn't a tv show, it's real life. things just happen.
sometimes you have to look after yourself, too.
aren't you even curious? after everything?
i'm nobody's fucking pinnochio. i'll dangle my own damn strings, thank you.
stop pretending you don't care about anything.
just trust me. and if you can't trust me, trust ______.
don't worry about that. it's all sorted. i phoned a friend.
you can be quite funny, if you try.
you can't fight fire with fire. take it from me.
you don't know what it's like to have no one.
you don't have to pretend anymore.
i've always liked the idea of reincarnation. a fresh start, a chance to try again.
to tell you the truth, i still don't know what to make of all this.
i just remembered the new ghost in the shell anime drops tomorrow. i'm going to be fucking insufferable.
excessive centrifugal force ? what on earth could cause so much force that it would kill him ? well , a lot of things , incidentally . he thinks of the rollercoasters he hates , how he hasn't gotten on one , or even visited an amusement park , for almost two decades . those can't kill him if he doesn't get on them . those are easy to avoid . he thinks of the elevators , on the other side of the labs and around the corners . even a floating vat has to have them . okay , so he'll just take the stairs . he'll avoid the elevators and take the stairs for the rest of his life . it's a bit of a hard sell on himself , but anything not to get himself killed . he thinks , too , of stratt's jets .
❝ uh … no , i didn't consider that . ❞ and then , after a moment's thought : ❝ actually , yeah . i've thought of that before . ❞ in the elevator , mostly . like , every time it went down , mostly . the jolt reminds him of his balance , and the stop gnaws at his hopes that this thing won't suddenly come loose of the strings holding it and crash on down and kill him . great . is that his actual fate ? now he has to wonder about that . honestly , he's probably more likely to die falling out of a jet ( or being killed by a rogue government jet pilot ) . ❝ but i'll , uh … i'll keep that in mind . ❞
five years from now or is it thirteen ? the words on the screen will blink ( excessive centrifugal force warning ) and he will think of lodi in this moment , laughing without humor , memories bouncing like a ping-pong ball around his brain . and he will apologize . sorry , earth . sorry , earth . sorry , sorry , sorry .
other than the new fear of flying and elevators , grace is all golden ! yeah , no big deal . at least the inevitable ice age that's coming won't be the thing that kills him . it makes him sad to think it might be the thing that kills lodi . his friend … they have to get this figured out . ❝ i'm going to need to see those medical records , pronto . ❞ he laughs . his has more mirth , but it's nervous . disarrayed . ❝ does that hurt ? ❞
while grace's question marinates in silence, lodi fidgets briefly with his watch, turning it around his wrist once, twice, like the dial of a safe; he expects to hear a click that never comes. does Seeing hurt? it's not painful per se, but it does feel like his perception is undergoing accelerated mitosis and being pulled in different directions each time. lodi feels he's adapted fast in just a month, suffering only vestigial discomfort. it doesn't appear as such from the outside, it looks like. he appreciates grace's concern more than he can articulate.
" it was worse a few days ago, now ... now not so much. " last friday felt awful, as though a second skeleton were replacing his own, every bone losing its agency simultaneously. " you've been in a house of mirrors, haven't you? imagine every reflection is a copy of you, sentience and senses included, and you're stretched across ... across perception and time like frames in an old photo reel. the reconciliation of each copy with the original is the tough part. that's what appears painful, but in a way it's only the parsing of sensory information. "
except that information is spread across different points in time, and that is the unbelievable part. that is the part that defies known science, known reality. there is more he wishes he could say because there is more to say about why time is a tapestry and he is the needle, and about the coffee - bitter murmur that burns in the back of his mind. but there is no need to inject grace with any more unease. the man has reached an acceptable limit for the moment.
" i'm not just displaced but also ... " a shaky inhale, as though fighting off stage fright before an audience of one. " changed. " yeah, no kidding. changed by his own kind of fist contact. " there's only so much i can say, really. at least not before you start looking at me like " lodi traces circles in the air beside his temple: the universal gesture for being off one's rocker. " y'know? "
fellas i am home at last and don't work for a whole week. i'm gonna collapse and rest but then i'm kicking off activity both here and on my main space, and that is a THREAT.
okay . note to self : lodi knows a lot of things in a very short amount of time . or , rather , he knows things from every span of time . at least backwards . that's filed away in grace's general knowledge now . he makes a mental note to himself to ask whether he knows about the future , too . clairvoyance is a thing of magic in movies : high fantasy generated through fantastical methods unexplainable through any scientific study . those things are made up by the human mind , not intended to be studied , only understood as fact , as something that happened because it simply could .
grace has never once considered that it could be attributed to the concept of time . at least … not in any way that he could possibly understand . the concept of time is a thing he's only familiar with on a surface level . in standard , light moves so fast that it doesn't move at all : the eight minutes it takes light to reach the earth from the sun is , in essence , the eight minutes it takes the earth to reach the light . humans experience time linearly , with no way of going forward or backward on that line , only capable of being in the now . except lodi , who seems to exist on a plane of time all of his own . he was in 1966 : now he's here , decades into the future . moving relative the speed of light .
again . note to self .
❝ first aliens on earth , and they're the ones intent on killing our sun . ❞ grace can only manage a weak smile . their fates are nothing but sealed . nineteen years they'd been given . an extra five , ten with antarctica out of the way . ❝ yeah . not a bright outlook . literally . ❞ the joke isn't funny , but he's still laughing . humorless , obviously . ❝ they've made more progress in the year i've been here than i think they did in the two years before that . the hail mary is , what , on schedule for launch next year ? ❞ then it's a quarter of a century before they know whether their efforts were in vain .
that's the nervous and joyless chuckling of someone who's resigned to his fate, and the kind that grace can allow himself in company different to that of his keepers. lodi isn't the crew of the hail mary, at relative peace with the fate that looms on their horizons, and neither is he stratt, the unethically unstoppable force that outwardly disregards almost anything but a glimpse at a way forward. his molecules have irrevocably changed, but lodi is still lodi is still a man. a man who understands what it is like to be given what cards to play and be expected to do so without even knowing the rules of the game.
his spine suddenly feels made out of threaded vetiver. white noise floods his inner ear; then nothing, utter silence, as though the world around him was but vacuum. (he can see five years down the valley of time, or is it twenty as per relativity, and find grace's face stained red. a thick line of blood connects his nostril and his chin, and its curvature reminds lodi of the petrova line.) as he clenches his hand into a fist, phalanges cracking audibly, lodi exhales sharply.
" sorry, i i'm ... i'm not sure if you know this, doctor grace, but you ever considered that excessive centrifugal force could kill you one day? " he's speaking nonsense by their standards, but his words are carbon dioxide and he cannot inhale them back into his lungs. a hand comes up to pinch the bridge of his nose, and then he's pressing his fingers into his eyes. he sees endless stars out of a portside window.
another exhale, longer and quieter, a traitor to his exhaustion. lodi's vision is his again, and it's here in the present. " i'm ... sorry, that's another consequence, " (side - effect, quirk, disadvantage) " of my displacement. " now it's lodi's turn to chuckle mirthlessly. " i'm sure you're dying to see those medical records right about now. "
for a long while ambrosius says nothing at all, only walks beside him, cane and footstep and ardyn's unhurried gait knitting themselves into a silence with teeth. between two dead people walking: nothing, and everything. it precedes a diagnosis, the physician's pause before delivering news no one asked to hear. when they finally speak, it comes softer than before, stripped of its armor.
destruction shouldn't be in your list of concerns, ardyn says. but that is where he is wrong.
"it has been my concern for two thousand years." a humorless not-quite-smile. "long before you ever decided to make peace with becoming everyone's monster." they remember thinking, the day they heard what the family had done to him on the isle of angelgard, that at least they're already dead and couldn't be made to watch it happen twice. they were wrong— about that, and about a great many things since. now they watch the people they care about ruin themselves slowly, in exquisite detail. neither of them asked for this. "i didn't come back from the dead to watch you choose to stay there. i know what i am. i know what you are. and i am telling you, as the only person left alive— or whatever we count as alive now— who remembers who you were before any of this: you don't have to let this be the end of the story they wrote for you. you're allowed to write a different one. even now... especially now."
"i'm not foolish enough to think there's a version of this where you walk away unscathed, though. or even where you walk away at all." their remaining eye closes. something almost gentle creeps into their dry cadence. "i've made my peace with that possibility long before this conversation, and the conversations before this one." when they look up to ardyn, their hand of flesh stays fisted white-knuckled around the cane. the other rises, just slightly, before they force it back down, clawed fingers curling into a fist instead of a reach. they want to anchor him. but it's futile, they know this. the dead have no business grasping at anything but each other's rot. and yet— "i just refuse to let you decide the ending is already written when we're both still standing here, breathing, however technical that word's become for either of us. that has to count for something."
they look away with a bitter laugh. "it always has... to me."
to call ambrosius naive would be folly, an insult to a soul as old and as experienced as his own but in this moment, they are. ardyn grapples with indifference and a wave of disgust. he doesn't acknowledge the once - physician's attempt at touching him longer than he should, eyes instead kept forward. the ending is indeed already set in stone, but they know nothing about this. how could they, when they share not the connection to the gods that the royal line of lucis does? they don't know what ardyn does, they haven't seen what he has, and as such they think that this path is ... optional. easily corrected. it isn't, and it never has.
" oh, please, ambrosius, " ardyn chides his companion, then tuts like a disappointed tutor, " you never wore delusion well. " their optimism, born from the inner peace they profess, is a commendable attitude; around ardyn and the knowledge he has harbored for years now, however, it is ultimately useless. that he should live and suffer simply to be the head and the tail of the snake is bitter medicine: first - born and last - dead, the line of lucis begins and ends with him. (that is, of course, unless the future king should kill him first.) so hath bahamut decreed him the blade upon which ardyn and noctis will both fall and die.
he thinks of it and the rage that still coils around his heart restricts the dead organ once more. " find your comforts where you will, but they are not mine to share with you. as i said, i know what awaits at the end. all of this? " ardyn sweeps a hand over the imperial scenery, then over his person. " niflheim, warring nations, magitek fluff. a means to get there faster and believe you me, the brakes on this train broke long ago. "
ardyn scoffs, then giggles. it's not his own joke he finds amusing. " you are aware that if i go, you go as well? is this an attempt at dissuading me that you may prolong your life further? and if so, my dear, to what end? "
lodi, @theomakhist: i can see you calculating how much you think you can get away with in 30 minutes.
he's certainly a strange man. excluding his given oddities, of course. she's read in countless reports of guardians fumbling their way through their new godhood by repeatedly blowing themselves up until they learn not to do that. for a mortal that was slingshot centuries into the future, he's handling this all with grace. there must be a reason the nine chose him after all.
the only indication mara has absorbed what he said is eyes slowly opening, pale as the rest of her. ❛ is that so? ❜ she queries, voice betraying nothing. idly, she wonders what lodi thinks he sees in her. he waltzed into this conversation; mara would not give him any unearned assistance. ❛ do you think me an opportunist, then? ❜ gaze drifts towards him in a controlled manner. deliberate. not a challenge, but an invitation.
intel is essential to a man like lodi. intel is, always has been and always will be, what guides his next steps but of course, it can only get one so far. everything he's been told, every word he has read about the queen of the awoken quite frankly pales in comparison to coming face to face with the woman herself. the emissary is curious: not only the designs of the nine are far - reaching and thus he ought to know all who might affected, but what kind of envoy would he be if he didn't get to know all the pieces on the board? (and such an influential one at that.) at her queries, emissary morphs into man like a reversible raincoat; he pushes up his glasses, and starlight glints off the lenses. " oh! that's, uh, that's a strong word. "
with such tight control over her person, it becomes clear that her unknowable disposition and loaded questions are what she cracks people open with. it's very CIA of her. " but no, that's not what i meant. you remind me of people i worked with: you come into conversations with a plan to get as much as you can in as little time as possible. except we're likely to talk for longer than that ... because you have questions you haven't been able to ask anyone else, i think. "
god lodi being so staunchly "i'd rather not use a gun where words will suffice" and sounding resigned when violence is the only way forward is just so important to me. but also i keep collecting this kind of archetype like i'm building a pokemon card collection, i need an intervention.
atp lodi is taking over so much of my brain + writing that i'm gonna set him up a little info post on my sideblog with verses and all. i am cooking immensely and my kitchen is on fire.
this took sorting through so many pages, item descriptions and lorebooks but we got it done: a lodi summary. go (and read it) my scarab.
atp lodi is taking over so much of my brain + writing that i'm gonna set him up a little info post on my sideblog with verses and all. i am cooking immensely and my kitchen is on fire.
this took sorting through so many pages, item descriptions and lorebooks but we got it done: a lodi summary. go (and read it) my scarab.
it will destroy you if you're not careful. | to ardyn<3
reunions are a bittersweet affair, doubly so when they come two thousand years and two respective deaths later. for all the time spent in the dark bowels of angelgard, ardyn still remembers the news of ambrosius' execution at the hands of a rotten and jealous kingdom taken over by an equally rotten and jealous king. derision clings to the word even as he muses on it. somnus had always been a hungry thing, never reaching contentment until he had stripped ardyn's world down to bone. now it is ardyn's turn to devour, and by the gods he so scorns the life of the world he now holds between his teeth is a delight to taste.
it is less divine where this old comrade - in - arms is concerned, for they share the same affliction now and somewhere in the depths of his raging heart, ardyn feels regret. wounds though they are upon the face of eos, ambrosius is a thorn in ardyn's as well. no, they were not his fault. ambrosius was not his fault. among the many, many slights for which adagium will come to collect in time, the loss of the once - physician's name and life figures. ambrosius knows that by now, and yet it isn't the first time they have attempted to dissuade him from his current course.
" it will destroy you if you're not careful. " an ironic thing to say to a man whose possessions, material or otherwise, amount to nothing. there is nothing to kill within a man that's already dead.
ardyn's smile is a rueful gesture, if only for a moment. reminiscence flickers to life before he smothers it like a measly flame. " you said that to me once, " sighs the chancellor as they walk down the metal - paved promenade. " but now you ought to specify, i fear, since i suspect your cryptic warning isn't about our common ailment anymore. besides, i know what awaits me at the end; destruction shouldn't be in your list of concerns. "
against the night, ft. @visceries.
atp lodi is taking over so much of my brain + writing that i'm gonna set him up a little info post on my sideblog with verses and all. i am cooking immensely and my kitchen is on fire.
" oh, don't be facetious, jon. it doesn't suit you. " and they're well beyond the point of snide commentary and point-blank denial, insofar as elias is concerned. the truth of his nature — as much as he has deemed fit to reveal at this stage, anyway — has been laid out: undeniable, irrevocable. thus in turn has jon's place in this institute, the power he has been granted beneath the watchful eye of both the entity they serve, and elias himself, been made plain. there's no question. there's no turning back, no other choice but to stay the course that the avatar has so cruelly, so painstakingly, put the archivist on. and yet —.
" you are just as much a patron of the eye as i am; you are changed. " tone even as he continues, ever the picture of the straight-laced bureaucrat: poised in his seat behind his desk; hands folded on the veneered surface, the likes of which is yet laden with paperwork. yet there is a certain gleam in his eye that suggests frustration. he sighs, cants his head as he regards jon, considering. " deny it all you like — it doesn't change the fact, and it gets us nowhere, besides. the sooner you realize that, the better for us both. "
𝒄𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒓 ‚ @m0tiveforce & jon.
the archivist is, undeniably, wasting time just by sitting across from elias, let alone scowling at him and engaging in a facsimile of banter that cuts like a thousand razor blades. there is much to do, there are statements to read and archive and witness; there is a ritual to stop, for god's sake, but at moments like this one, it all takes a back seat. as elias has so rightly and correctly pointed out, they thrive on knowing too much. elias' assessment continues to prove correct in its remark that jon continues to push on regardless of boundaries: the doors are there for him to cross, never mind what stands on the threshold attempting to block his access. man has forever reached for that which often eludes his grasp. jon, as a servant of the eye, embodies such a flaw to near perfection.
you are changed, says the man sitting perfectly still across from him, and not for the first time does jon wish to compel elias to shut up. to keep those remarks and 'observations' to himself, because they do them as little good as jon's denial does him. (the frustration builds. the archivist doesn't need to See to understand.) " i'd realize it faster, " jon bites back, tone on a chokehold so it doesn't get away from him, " if i had more than breadcrumbs to go off of. you want me to know, to act quicker, and what was it, i'm not supposed to know so much so early? "
never mind the sword and the wall: this is more like being told to stay alive but simultaneously being threatened with death by gunshot.
❝ sorry to hear . ❞ about the translator part . actually , about the everything part : everything about lodi reminds grace of a loose wire , supercharged and flailing with no place to go , ready to ignite the air that just so happens to be flammable . just like god intended . whatever . just like science intended , for some sick reason , to place all humanity in danger over the smallest change in temperature . whether that be in just a small room … or the entire sun . a fraction of a fraction of a percent spells complete and total doom of the human race . funny how these things work .
actually , since lodi is stratt's translator - ❝ that means i'll probably be seeing you around , right ? it's generous of her not to provide me with a translator . considering she probably understands ten more languages than i do . ❞ but for the most part , understanding has only been an issue when it comes to reading the road and restaurant signs . as for the people , grace has found that most government officials - who partake in top secret intelligence with the express aim of saving the world - understand and speak english perfectly well . save for the difficult hundred-dollar words . he can understand fine .
leave it to stratt to make sure the two languages she doesn't already speak are covered .
❝ where does she take you ? ❞ small talk isn't his forte . the question already bores him , so he pivots on a dime to something totally different . ❝ never mind . everywhere . i'm staying on stratt's vat for a while . they're doing some experiments on astrophage i'm apparently supposed to be a part of . then florida . i think they're in talks with nasa to get roscosmos's eva suits up and tested . have you ever been to the johnson space center ? … do you even know what that is ? ❞
the more they speak, the more apparent it becomes as though it weren't already that placing them on the same 'team' had been the equivalent of putting two peas in the same pod. too much entropy. too much energy, enthusiasm, electricity; and yet, they are still a system under control. as grace pivots away from the more banal type of questions as though drawing back from a hot poker, lodi sips his coffee long enough to finish it and then idly turns the styrofoam cup in his hands. there's a moment of weightlessness, and then grace pins him back onto the canvas of reality.
do you even know what that is? it's a fair thing to ask someone who's been stretched over the fabric of time and then repositioned, but it injects him with a fresh dose of melancholy every time he hears that. there is so much he has missed in the wake of his involuntary jump ahead, and lodi's attempts at stability are never - ending and also never fast enough. that in itself is a constant and though he was never a dedicated mathematician himself, that is something he can work with regardless. the cup in his hand stops rotating.
" that's the, uh " lodi snaps his fingers once, twice; scrunches up his face in thought, and as the knowledge manifests in his mind, he gestures emphatically in grace's direction, mien relaxing into an expression of wide - eyed relief and vigor. " that's flight control! see, it it wasn't named that while i was still around. it was the manned spacecraft center, and it was ... it was renamed in nineteen seventy - three. "
lodi says that with such certainty he surprises even himself, and it shows. there's a myriad topics he's yet to receive a history lesson on, but he forgets that sometimes he doesn't have to know. Seeing is enough. " i only went once, and it was shortly after it opened for business. i can only imagined how much it's changed in fifty - odd years. " a sigh leaves him. " i used to wonder what was out there. but now an alien organism is eating the sun and the charm is, heh, somewhat lost. we can't even talk to it, which is what my organization was established for. what a way to make first contact. "
"I'll see you on the other side; we can talk there. You can, uh ... tell me all about Earth."
