#Dimension: Betwixt

[cizzle-freezy]

Krystallynn Neva, or "Krys" for short. Heiress to the throne due to her divine connection to Prysm, the goddess who watches over the kingdom of Mayamai.

... aka this is yet another self-indulgent thingy. Wouldn't call it an AU, probably more like a multiverse? Dimension? Regardless, I call it "Betwixt", and it started because of a gartic phone prompt where I did a swap AU of sorts.

Also! This is an outfit redraw (or adaptation?) of a 'sona @hikaririnku-blog had drawn of me back when we were in high school (probably 6 to 10 years ago at this point, there wasn't a date on the drawings), and she gave me permission to share them here for sake of comparison:

[genshin-impact-updates]

The "Blades Weaving Betwixt Brocade" wallpaper series is now available!

Click the link to download the wallpapers in different dimensions!

https://hoyo.link/7oyhFBAL

[taldigi]

i've deduced that the fact that ren /akechi can't work is based solely on Akechi once calling Ryuji stupid to Ren's face- wherein any and all attraction and or goodwill drained out of him like a tub of water before the flextape is slapped on. Sorry, the only one who gets to call Ryuji stupid is Ren's cat and that's because they've got a very complicated friendship and need to work that out betwixt themselves actually and akechi sort of threw away that theoretical privilege when he decided that murder is more titillating than friendship- which is high treason in The Anime Dimension

[ximiiixx]

read this post first!

this is a continuation of the music artist mc au.

imagine baxter ward as your manager. he's by far the most personable hire you've got, but there's an air of detachment to him that sings to the allure of mystery; a strange, offputting charm that comes with how easily he smiles at you no matter the acidity of any sour attitude you might harbor. be it that you're not a morning person or that you're simply a surly person in general, he'll take all of it - all of you - in stride with nary a strand of hair out of place nor a blemish or bruise on his flawless press-board figure.

and maybe if you were a bit more brazen than what was listed in your job description, maybe if you were a naïve little thing - you might have eyed the sweep of his delicate fingers across his bangs with more intrigue, might have found a dark sort of thrill in the smoked swim of his voice as he pings off demands and calls like bullets off armor, might have taken more time than you needed to watch him slide off the impeccably cut blazer hiding all that smooth-planed goodness.

maybe if you were a bit bolder, you'd let your curiosity get the better of you; wrestle every instinct and rule hammered into your brain like tenderized meat and keep it all under lock and key in favor of using the tick of his fingers and the unlacing of his scarf in the mornings as a distraction for your ever-fidgeting eyes.

and baxter- oh, he knows everything there is to know about you. he's your manager, after all, and it's his job to know these things and delegate accordingly. he knows how you take your coffee, what you like on your morning toast, the exact dimensions of the perfect dressing room size for you to prepare comfortably for a performance, what colors bring out the shimmer of your eyes the best; all of it, he's kept neatly filed away on the back burner for later, try as he might to seem nonchalant about the whole ordeal.

but it's hard to ignore when he's dead set on making sure everything goes perfectly - and by that, he means that everything must go your way. any desire of yours, any base need or fleeting want or whatever may come betwixt - it will all be yours at the work of his hands if you so much as snapped your fingers.

a certain jewelry maker from a certain writer's most beloved heist film said it best; "[they] must have the sun."

and have it you shall, if only you would ask for it - if only you would let him bring it to you with bare, burning hands.

call it uncanny, if you must - call it unsettling, even, to have such a straitlaced man waiting on you hand and foot. but your fame is well-earned, and who is he to look an opportunity in the mouth?

after all...perhaps there's a different kind of mouth he'd rather become well-acquainted with.

[lactating]

Before you begin your daring and quite magical physica manouvers, you feel a little tingle from your ally in chromancy, UP! You indulge the box of lights' koans for another few minutes. UP: Hi! NG: hiiiiiii NG: rhyme or meter? You find the challenge enhances every possible dimension of inter-personal communiques. [11] UP: Rhymes this time. fuck yes UP: Do you know where I can find a disk? A CD Disk? NG: the oracle isnt parsing this question; rephrase it with mythological intention UP: O Wise One, Wherefore do I find the Lightning-Fired Tome of Sacred Knowledge? you sincerly have no idea NG: if you can find it, its for sale, and if its hay bale, horsegale mangrit! NG: goshdarn dangit? four hour workshift? UP: I suppose that much was obvious. UP: What have you been up to? NG: pride month in a plastic land wizard wants to attend, pride staff in hand ill omens she portends, across the lands pride month in a plastic land UP: Those are both also in meter. You spoil me. NG: babbling across the petrified sands twisting, tortured souls forever to remand evil aroots betwixt microplastic cracks alchemical creations reproduce autofiat do your footprints leave tire tracks? even trees give their leaves for free pride month in a plastic land wizard sees a rat crushed beneath the motor spirits noble heel ill omens she portends, like. for real. UP: ...:) NG: i need to get off my phone lightbox scrambles my melon so lost in the poetry zone it was flowing out of me like a balletNG: so good luck - ; as a spell i cast to your pluck UP: Oh fuck yes, more spells for me? NG: “do whatever you want forever”; advice a true treasure UP: Okay, lest we get too giddy. UP: I bid you adieu; I’ve stuff to do. NG: til we meet again, friend ^_^ As do you! It seems like BT must have done its dirty work of wrangling nonnie to do the one thing he is supposed to do today. Yippee!!!!!!!

#61: ford the dragon for real this time > #18: The Dragon? >

[lilyofporcelain]

"Enjoy your time, no matter how you spend it or who with, Laeynna. Life can be too short to care about what others think about you."

"It is alarming, how oft to know that I can tread ground betwixt logic and heart. This is a war that surely, I must throw myself into the fray of each and every day. Knowing that in my way, I wish to live my life in a fashion that I can be self-indulgent without fear of repercussion or experiencing guilt for it.

I do try, at times, to live in this way. A century ago, I would have. I cared very little then for the opinion of others. Yet there were other parts of me as equally unpleasant. Now it seems I have tipped far over into the opposite direction.

When I worry, it is because I care about the thoughts and the opinions of those I consider friends. Those with whom I wish to be friends. I do not want them to think me singular in dimension or selfish. I do not want them to think me heartless or insensitive. I struggle to find the balance of living my best life the way I choose to and being afraid of how that living will be conveyed to others.

At the end of it all, I simply do not wish to hurt those I care for in little and large, and all sizes in between. For all of my prickly thorns, it may be time for me to admit that my petals are considerably softer. May I hone the strength to worry less and to live more."

(Thank you, anon!)

[daemonlogical]

To turn one's back

Danny knew, upon taking the crown and ring, upon accepting the mantle of the Infinite Realms, that he has power enough to cleave Earth in two. Gather all remaining captives of the GiW in Earth, gather his family and fraud, and obliterate the planet that has hurt him for so long. Doing away with mortals thinking that they can cow the Infinite, break the will of the Beyond, conquer the Hereafter.

But, in the wisdom the crown gives, he knows all will go to him in time.

So, instead, he made this proclamation, hoping to keep conflict away from the Realms:

I, Phantom, the Balance, Rex Infinitus, Sovereign of the Realms Betwixt and Between, declare this as truth: the Infinite Realms shall be closed to this dimension, to be reopened only upon death of the last of mortals ensouled.

With that proclamation delivered, the Infinite Realms responded to their King's command and sealed all entrances across the universe, from end to unreachable end. His people are already safe in the realms, there is nothing to return to, so he turns his back to the world that turned against him first.

What he didn't understand though, was closing the Inbetween isolated that dimension's plane from Everything Else. And those from Elsewhere in that dimension were sealed as well, doomed to never go home.

The living raged, disbelieving. The dead understood, accepting.

What happens now?

[sanctummiles]

@draikoeques asked: Rothalion hopped excitedly to Janlenoux, standing up on his tiptoes and reaching out with one hand to tug him gently down for a quick kiss. Then, between them, he lifted up a box. The box was long and somewhat flat, wrapped tight in a translucent blue ribbon that paired well with the bright red paper. "Happy Starlight, dearest!" he purrs, his smile bright. Within the box was a scabbard, one made to fit Janlenoux's blade. It was entirely silver and adorned with golden embellishment, bright blue sapphires embedded at the top and near the bottom of the scabbard on both sides. "Lucky for me I knew exactly where to go to have it crafted to the perfect dimensions without sneaking away your blade," he comments with a laugh, "They already had the blueprint on store. I... noticed your blade lacking anything to protect it, I know not if it had a scabbard proper to begin with but this will keep it sharp and in good shape even longer. Thought you might like something a little... extra, something pretty."

Some days were certainly better than others. Some days, it was as if Janlenoux was his normal self, other days he was convinced he could see the ghosts of his fallen brothers, suffered with terrible pain behind his eyes and an exhaustion he couldn't shift. He saw it as his punishment, from the Fury, for stepping wrong in his direction... for falling victim when he ought have seen that he was being misled. Alas... regret gets one nowhere.

Rothalion's joy never ceases to aid Janlenoux in perking up his mood, and though the smile he gave was ultimately small, he meant it. Talks of Starlight, however, was largely unexpected - - he'd not remembered the date, hadn't recalled the time of year... and now, he stood surprised with a gift betwixt his fingers.

His smile grew a smite wider, the reveal of the gift to be perfectly useful and greatly appreciated.

"...I used to have one, yes- - I actually lost it in the Weestern Highlands not long after I got it ... Adelphel and I had gotten into a spot of trouble, ended up stuck down a crevasse after falling in..." It was a bittersweet memory, knowing his dearest friend was no longer walking the earth like he did. "Thank you, Ro... this means much."

[qbren]

Zelda: A Link Between Worlds https://twitch.tv/qbren Enter into Ice Dungeon! Bought the Hookshot for discount from Ravio, Sneaking secrets betwixt dimensions, Challenging monstrous enemies everywhere!

[rotten-pest]

Coiled spring of death; Or, 2nd molt.

It is a strange thing, to try to explain. Humans, all their ken (birds, rodents, hooved things, hounds, so on…) shed skin regularly. But that was a very different sort of thing, more like a tree losing a leaf. So small and inconsequential as to be unnoticeable. But for her kind? Shedding, or molting, as it were, was a long process. First the old skin must be separated from the flesh. One becomes inert, lethargic. For humans, such a process is called ‘de-gloving’, and is a bad thing. After the outer is separated from the inner, digestive fluids are flooded into the space but do not yet get to their work—but they do singe, tingle, a bit of a numbing sensation. First the new shell must be prepared. It is soft and flexible. One cannot put to words the immense relief, whence previously unknown, to this stage. But it is a short lived relief, for what comes after. For once complete one must break out of their old shell, pushing and bulging and squirming and throbbing and twisting and crawling, digestive fluids weakening the structure, lubricating the separation point, until one splits along their old back and is able to begin pulling themselves out. Then they are a soft thing. Teneral, or callow. Then they may grow into their new skin, swallowing air to expand the flesh while it still flexes And then, rest. While their new skin hardens, tans, until one is no longer soft-bodied-pale, near transluscent.

It is, in so many words, exhausting. For Pests, who are enormous compared to any other hard-shelled things, it is a very, very long process. And such the need for cooperation, then. One must be tended to, extensively, while they molt. Cleaned and tended to, helped if they get stuck. Nothing quite as terrifying as being sealed within one’s own flesh.

But it is not especially painful, perse. Even having once pulled off one of her own arms, it hurt, but it was a dull aching pain for a short while and then ceased. And then it grew back, a molt or two later.

So it is to say that this molt, as it were, is the worst agony? That it is past pronunciation, past full consideration, at certain points. Where her great and immense form, her perfect chitinous body? A hide untouchable, blades broke upon it? Now rendered by the rot of Aeonia? Her body, broken upon the wheel of fate, in a way, for it was the destiny of all things to die. The depths of a beast opened up by prey too large, her body is wrecked, and as the tears of the flesh emerge, they leave behind the tears of sorrow. Ants and flies pillage her corpse, a thousand tiny mouths. Worms writhe beneath the thin layers of her flesh. Tiny, toothless mouths burrowing through her flesh. It hurts, but it is no sharp pain. It is a long, dull agony. She cannot focus on the pain anymore, but there is nothing else to think of. So she is awash in pain. The gnawing. And then other things come for whats left. Decaying as though dead, turned to not much more than Dread and Ruin in the most nebulous of terms, as more dead among the rot. Like sand through her fingers, she grips onto her own certainty with strength to shatter bone. Desperation that could tear a star out of the night-sky or spit in the face of a Goddess. I am alive, alive, alive, and live for greater purpose. And what wretched agony blooms forth from her grip, like lightning licking her cortices. Fire, it feels like fire, or maybe being dipped into cold-beyond-cold, torn betwixt the two wildly.

And then, silence.

The absence of all things. Sight, touch, sound, taste. Hot, cold, light, dark. The very sense of where she is in space, the dimensions of her body. Unmade, unraveled. A single thread in the tapestry of life, plucked out. Time does not exist in this place, and for one who worships the vibrancy of life and curses where it has been limited by earthbound gods, who who drinks deep the well of fungal networks as they prize life from the dead, it is torture.

Somewhere, distantly, there is a reclamation of something. A fleeting thing, no more than a hair.

When she emerged from the Rot, it was with purpose. Go forth and find Our Goddess, sang the choir. Shrill desperation turned their voices sharp, like shards of broken glass upon which she cut her teeth and honed her mind upon that which she’d sought. Before her was a dilapidated land, flush and yet barren. The Rot starved, neglected. She was a chord in the epitaph. To seek. To bring back. In one way or another, she'd bring Her back.

Her reviled children, begging for the barest sliver of love. To put an end to the stagnancy of ever-abundance. Poison, the tool of her trade, was in her mind far less harmful than the Golden one’s holy decrement. An empire built on top of corpses. Achievement and pride brimming in absence of life.

A forest without saprophytes and armillaria—the soft and dry rots—was a forest bound to overcrowd, where the eldest trees would rule over for time immemorial and smother their babes in their cribs, if they ever flowered at all. That was the degradation of the world, and She turned her face from it.

And yet the chorus begged for Her yet still.

Cotesia hated them for it.

She remembers her first sunrise. She remembers being held up, to see it. Look there, young one, said gently, scent-taste so sweet and nurturing. Held, lovingly. They, so wretched and unloved, treated with such revulsion.

And so her flesh is pulled around the scaffolding of bone. Blood fills her veins, no longer to idly slosh around a body cavity at loose direction. A heart is separated neatly into four chambers, a pair of lungs and a diaphragm work in tandem with a mouth and nose to allow air in and expel it out. She is woven from all things reviled, not ash to be returned to such. She is alive. Painted in scarlet hues, cleaved close back to the realm of that which can be held, molded into what could be seen. What could be rent and cleaved. Abandon ambiguity, reverence, nostalgia.

I am alive.

She bursts from the swamp of Aeonia gasping, pulling herself from the muck.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #309: To Find OLYMPIA!

November, 1989

Namor looks like he's got some negative things to say, in the zone.

And it is canon sometimes that the Negative Zone makes a person feel negative. Its the Bad Vibes Place.

I have no idea why dead Gilgamesh was drawn with the What's Going On He-Man face. Or why She-Hulk is in her Fantastic Four duds.

So, lets get into it.

Last times, in Avengers: Captain America held a meeting to declare that all the Avengers teams were one team and he was in charge of the Avengers. Also, the Avengers got kidnapped by Lava Men. And so did Namor. They were taken to the Last Lava Man, a priest called Jinku, who accused the Avengers of genociding the Lava Men, which they kinda sorta did do by killing a random demon named Cha'sa'dra during Inferno. The Avengers don't beat Jinku and the giant monster he summoned so much as run out the clock. Some of the dead Lava Men turned out to not be dead so much as incubating. They hatched into golden men and told Jinku to knock it off. Alas?, Gilgamesh got fatally slapped while fighting the lava monster and is now exceptionally dead. The Avengers take Gilgamesh to Sersi who can't help and suggests they take him to the Eternal city Olympia. Except Eternal Sprite managed to blow it up like ten minutes before they get there. The whole city.

Just a big, steaming crater now.

Thanks Sprite, you screw-up.

Sersi: "It is... gone! All of fabled Olympia! Snuffed out as a flickering candle flame! How can this be??"

Captain America tries to offer any help the Avengers can do. But Sersi just dramatically faints after psychically scanning for any trace of Olympia.

She murmurs about emptiness and enormity and the loneliness of endless space.

Such a dramatic person.

There's also a weird bit of choreography where Captain America caught Sersi when she fainted. So he's clearly not holding his shield. He tells She-Hulk to hold it for him but she's already holding it and must have grabbed it when he dropped it to pick up Sersi, since she's right behind him in that panel.

And she gives it right back to him as soon as he's put Sersi down.

So why was it necessary for Cap to tell She-Hulk to do something she was already doing? Did Byrne worry that the choreography wouldn't stand on its own?

Ah well.

The Avengers wonder if there's something wrong with the Eternals lately. Because, well, Gilgamesh is mostly dead despite being Eternal and the Lava Monster didn't hit him THAT hard.

Gilgamesh should have been able to heal himself, since all Eternals have the power of molecular manipulation over their own bodies.

Sersi drifts back to consciousness and explains that "all Eternals an sense the minds of all other Eternals no matter the range" so she tried reaching out.

She sensed them near but not on Earth.

Which Cap finds baffling. But Thor has an idea what she means.

Remember how his hammer used to be able to create dimensional portals and then it couldn't? Well, it can again.

He figures that near but far probably means another dimension. And he doesn't have to be precise. When all you have is a hammer, it helps if its a really, really cool hammer.

Thor just wills "let the powers that split the raging heavens now be focused here, into a single place, a single purpose... and let any barrier betwixt us and Olympia... be SUNDERED!"

And bippity boppity boo, a portal is opened through.

To the Negative Zone, apparently. Well, the cover spoiled that. You're not special for realizing it on sight, She-Hulk.

Sersi confirms that Thor hit the nail on the head. In the Negative Zone she can indeed sense Olympia.

She-Hulk: "In the Negative Zone? But... how the heck did it get there? I thought the only access was through the portal in the Fantastic Four's headquarters." Thor: "Nay, green one. That is but one way to reach this parallel dimension. Mjolnir hath opened this small gateway by drawing on the residual energies of whatever force dispatched Oympia hence."

Namor says that the time for discussion is over. If Olympia is in the Negative Zone, the only hope for Gilgamesh will be to find it.

Sersi agrees.

Sersi: "We must go now where Olympia has gone... into the Negative Zone!"

"Meanwhile, elsewhere" we check back in on old guy who blew up his own house subplot.

Professor Harker takes the blueprints for his fantabulous new invention to the Polydyne company and blows them away!

A guy in a tie: "It's absolutely amazing! Something like this is going to make cold fusion seem as antiquated as rubbing two sticks together! Why... the kind of power that could be harnessed from a single such device would be enough to supply the needs of the whole world for centuries!"

Professor Harker himself prefers to think of it as more the power to re-shape the whole universe maybe. But the Polydyne peeps warn him the money men won't understand that so maybe stick with the 'makes cold fusion look like a joke' sales pitch.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, the Great Lakes Avengers!

Huh, I guess Byrne really is writing three teams in two books since the GLA is showing up in East Coast Avengers now.

I do worry that it's going to be hard to balance between the needs of the book's actual team and whatever Great Lakes Avengers content is showing up this month.

Hawkeye tells the Great Lakes Avengers that they did okay against the Absolom University chumps but they could have done a lot better.

I mean. They were only in action for a few pages so I don't know how you can tell.

But anyway, Hawkeye and Mockingbird have come up with carefully tailored training for the team!

Carefully tailored until they ran out of steam halfway and decided Mr Immortal and Doorman's powers were too weird to train and just have them training in athletics.

Didn't even try with Flatman. Hawkeye just tells him to do whatever he wants.

Pretty amazing how quickly Hawkeye goes from Tough Coach to half-assed.

So they have Dinah Soar flying while dodging hay bales, Big Bertha doing track and field, Mr Immortal and Doorman doing an obstacle course, and Flatman also doing an obstacle course but with more wiggling.

Hawkeye decides to throw a wrinkle in the training by shooting a grease arrow right in front of Big Bertha.

She slips, bumps into a fatphobic Mr Immortal, and he falls into Doorman.

Literally into.

This is weird because Doorman's powers are only supposed to work if he's against a door or a wall. Y'know, so his body can function as a door?

He's never had someone go through him when there wasn't a through.

Dinah Soar doesn't wait around for them to talk through the situation.

She flies right into Doorman. Literally into. And soon after flies out carrying Mr Immortal.

She cradles him against her chest as he shivers that it was so cold inside wherever he was.

Y'know... Next time the Great Lakes Avengers gets a miniseries or whatever, they should resurrect Dinah Soar. She missed out on a lot of the modern fleshing out the team got because her death basically kicked off the plot of the Dan Slott miniseries.

A new Great Lakes Avengers thing could have a lot of fun bringing her back and making it a whole thing about comic book resurrections.

C'mon, do it.

Anyway, Hawkeye decides they're gonna do a bunch of tests on Doorman, until they figure out how he works.

I was going to joke about Hawkeye trying to do science but I did then remember that Mockingbird does have a Ph.D.

In biology which may or may not wholly cover whatever is going on here. But in comics, a Ph.D. can do all the science.

Look at Hank Pym, revolutionizing robotics (derogatory) when his degree was in biochemistry. Almost as far from robotics as you can get.

Meanwhile, the A-plot.

I've missed it so.

... Actually, its the Save Gilgamesh plot so I didn't miss it so much.

Byrne is blatantly pushing to make the Great Lakes Avengers a thing but the main plots in both the Avengers plots are so blah that I don't actually mind the Great Lakes Avengers panel-time takeover so much.

Anyway, instead of just walking through the portal, the Avengers stopped to go get their Quinjet and are flying it through the Negative Zone.

I guess this is one of the space capable ones.

They're relying on Sersi's psychic connection with all other Eternals to guide them and she says they're on the right track.

Although the Avengers are doubtful about that since they just passed themselves.

I didn't know the Negative Zone did that.

Sersi insists that they're going the right way but she doesn't sound sure.

Cap agrees to keep going the way she's indicating but only for another hour or so! After that, they'll presumably have a very serious conversation about trying something else!

But Sersi was leading them right. Because right after that interaction, they find Olympia.

Just floating in the Negative Zone.

(Dammit, Sprite!)

The place is deserted - although most of the population was already gone before Sprite blew the place up so grain of salt on it looking deserted when it practically already was.

But it also looks decrepit, like its crumbling into ruin.

Sersi still senses her fellow Eternals... somewhere. So they land to look.

Namor flies off on his little ankle wings to scout around the city. And soon returns reporting he found nothing but a vague sense of unease.

He didn't see anyone in the city but he felt a presence all around.

Cap echoes his unease. The place feels haunted. Which Sersi dismisses since Eternals can't die.

Namor: "Yet that is precisely what is happening to Gilgamesh."

Acksually, he's only mostly dead.

Sersi wonders whether Olympia being lost in the Negative Zone and the Eternals being missing might somehow be related to Gilgamesh's advanced case of being sorta but not really dead.

Cap suggests they Split Up, They'll Cover More Ground That Way.

Thor is sent off on his own because he's a big, tough guy. She-Hulk and Sersi are sent off as a team. And Namor and Captain America make up the last team.

=_= Like. Did he put all the girls (all two girls) on the same team on purpose? Did he just want to hang out with his Nazi-punching World War II buddy, Namor?

Because. They discuss World War II as they're hopping and flying around the city. So it could very well be the second reason.

Captain America and Namor discuss how Olympia feels similar to Berlin in the last days of World War II. How it feels like there's an emptiness of spirit or the bitterness of "the death of dreams."

Cap worries that all they've accomplished on this journey is bringing Sersi to witness the end of the Eternals.

BUT NAMOR DOESN'T HAVE TIME TO CARE ABOUT THAT.

He re-steers the conversation back to how cool it is to hang out with an old-Nazi punching buddy. He misses the old gang.

Cap mentions that hey, recent revelations are that Vision wasn't made out of the Human Torch which means the Human Torch is maybe, probably, still around!

Namor: "Aye, and aye again! If he could be found... reactivated! The Invaders might well live again..."

Ugh.

I assume that was a huge part of Byrne's reasoning to do the VisionQuest plot.

He was big mad that robot Human Torch got tied up in Vision's origin and he wanted to peel him away so he could bring the Invaders back as a team again.

Either as a third book he'd be writing or as a fourth team he'd be writing in the two books he already had.

Every so many years, Marvel tries to bring the Invaders back.

I assume due to trademark reasons.

And it never lasts. Because the team doesn't make much sense outside a war. And any modern wars they've been shoved into are... just fraught with issues.

A new Invaders book was spun off from the Avengers way down the line to deal with the War on Terror and it was not great.

Anyway, a mystery off-screen person also agrees with me that reforming the Invaders is stupid as fuck and blows up Captain America and Namor.

Alas.

Meanwhile, She-Hulk and Sersi (designated lady team not cool enough to hang out with the Nazi punching boys) walk through the High Tower of Olympia, toward the Great Hall.

She-Hulk tries to mention she heard a far-off distant sound like thunder and also muses on how weird it is that the Negative Zone has breathable atmosphere but Sersi tells her to shut up.

THIS IS THE HIGH TOWER OF OLYMPIA, HUMANS DON'T USUALLY GET TO WALK THIS PASSAGE. BE IMPRESSED BY THE GRANDEUR, SHE-HULK.

Sersi: "This is the High Tower of Olympia -- the seat of our government, the holy of holies. No human has ever walked this passageway... Ahead lies the Great Hall, the central meeting place of all Eternals. Tread softly now in this hallowed place. Choose every word with care. Beyond these doors lies the very heart of Olympia. Draw your breath in awe at what will now unfold..."

Then she walks into a door.

Honestly, that's a funny gag.

Presumably the doors are supposed to swing open when an Eternal approaches them.

But, obviously, that's not happening.

So She-Hulk just shoves the doors open and strides on through.

She-Hulk: "Excuse me if I don't pay this place quite the respect you seem to think it's due, Sers... but let's try a more direct approach to opening these doors."

I hope She-Hulk sticks with the team whenever Sersi ends up joining. These two seem like they would have a hilarious dynamic.

The Great Hall seems to have been through a war, of some kind.

There's holes in the walls, pillars are shattered, the stonework is cracked.

In shock, Sersi declares no force on Earth could do this kind of damage. Especially not the Deviants. Not that there are any on Earth, since they were all launched into space as a cube. Probably.

Also, they're not on Earth. There's a lot of things in the Negative Zone that are heavy hitters. It's why people don't go there for fun. That and it makes people depressed to be there.

Weirder than the damaged state of the hall, Sersi can sense her fellow Eternals here, somehow! Here in this room! Everywhere around She-Hulk and Sersi! Despite the two seeming to be alone here!

Still angered by the idea of the Invaders reforming, someone blows up the Great Hall.

She-Hulk and Sersi are sent flying by the explosion.

And despite being gamma strong, there's something weird with gravity, so the fall knocks She-Hulk out despite cannonballing through seventeen stories of building in Avengers West Coast. Gravity is to blame.

Thor is aggroed by all these explosions. Like She-Hulk, he assumes that its the sound of thunder and this is a man who loves thunder.

He flies to the central tower and finds the place in ruins and Sersi in a weird intangible state.

Then Thor must have been thinking about the Invaders or something because he also blows up.

Nahhh just kidding.

It's Blastaar. He's been blowing people up.

He's incorrigible.

Unsurprisingly for a guy designed by Jack Kirby, he looks incredibly like a Kirby character. I think he goes to the same tailor as Darkseid. And the same beard barber as Highfather.

Anyway, Blastaar being the answer of 'what happened to the missing Eternals' sure is something. Not very satisfying as an answer but maybe him getting his ass kicked will be cathartic.

Follow @essential-avengers because one day that sub-tumblr will be up to date. One day, yes. Also, like, reblog, comment, and other such ways of interacting with this post.

[arkan-dreamwalker]

I am such a sucker for the character-betwixt-worlds trope. Old home versus new home. And consequently Sunset shimmer is a favorite character of mine. Sunset adapted to her new dimension and lived there for years, but she wore her new home as a mask. Even as she schemed and fought her way up the food chain establishing herself above those around her, her mind was still bent on Equestria, all of her conquests in Equestria-G were for the eventual domination of Equestria Prime.

It was only once she let go of her pride that she was able to accept the world around her on its own merits, and begin to forge herself that which truly makes a place into a home: Relationships.

Based off what we saw throughout the Equestria Girls releases, I suspect that if Equestria Girls had been given a proper ending it would have been that the encroaching magic from Equestria was becoming too dangerous, and they would need to seal off the bridge between worlds. This would have presented Sunset with a choice: Either return to her home dimension, and reforge her old life, or remain forever in her new world, once a refuge now turned into a home, and accept her new life in all its fullness. A bittersweet ending to be sure.

I just love the character-between-worlds trope.

Besides, her design is so cool.

sunset

[wurds-fur-nurds]

Title: The Ephemeral Confluence of Liaison

Abstract: This poem endeavors to explore the multifaceted concept of liaison through a series of intellectual abstractions and whimsical juxtapositions. It seeks to elucidate the inherent complexities and paradoxes of human connections, employing a lexicon replete with academic jargon and playful verbosity.

Introduction: The notion of liaison, a term of French origin, encapsulates the intricate interplay between entities, whether they be individuals, ideas, or institutions. This poetic exposition aims to dissect the quintessence of liaison, utilizing a framework of theoretical constructs and linguistic frivolity.

Body:

Stanza I: The Ontological Inquiry In the realm of existential conundrums, Where epistemological quandaries abound, Lies the liaison, a nexus of intersubjectivity, A dialectical synthesis of disparate entities, Converging in a symphony of semiotic resonance.

Stanza II: The Phenomenological Perspective Through the lens of phenomenological scrutiny, The liaison emerges as a transcendental phenomenon, A gestalt of relational dynamics, Where the noumenal and the phenomenal coalesce, In a kaleidoscope of hermeneutic interpretations.

Stanza III: The Epistemic Conundrum Behold the epistemic labyrinth, Where the liaison navigates the corridors of cognition, A heuristic device of knowledge acquisition, Entwined in a web of axiomatic postulations, Defying the Cartesian dichotomy of mind and matter.

Stanza IV: The Metaphysical Paradox In the metaphysical theatre of absurdity, The liaison performs its ontic ballet, A paradoxical interplay of being and becoming, Oscillating betwixt the realms of actuality and potentiality, In an eternal dance of existential ambiguity.

Conclusion: The liaison, in its myriad manifestations, remains an enigmatic construct, defying simplistic categorization. It is a testament to the complexity of human interactions and the boundless potential for intellectual exploration. Through this poetic endeavor, we have traversed the labyrinthine corridors of liaison, uncovering its multifarious dimensions with a touch of academic whimsy.

References: 1. Derrida, J. (1967). Of Grammatology. 2. Heidegger, M. (1927). Being and Time. 3. Foucault, M. (1966). The Order of Things.

Appendix: A Glossary of Terms - Liaison: A connection or relationship between entities. - Ontological: Pertaining to the nature of being. - Phenomenological: Relating to the study of phenomena as they appear. - Epistemic: Concerning knowledge or the conditions for acquiring it. - Metaphysical: Beyond the physical; relating to the fundamental nature of reality.

[libidomechanica]

Untitled (“Thou wage mute”)

The Flame had leave auld Scotia’s shore?     That lost in the Water of the gorge dimensions of a     maiden, ae sweet a breast- deep in each, and zoned with gold, with     thy beauty’s orient

deep the mountain-tops where but born     just as the court’ she answered, then ye know thy change o too     this upland dim, these to light, but each time leaves in sweet consent,     so in the file this

face, then, in halls of the stubble-     plains with ample awnings gay betwixt them night in every     shade of Susa braided, her soul and Body be They—     pitiful arose, when we

dipt in all the bay like a     celestial canopy of English field, ere That comes the clouds,     were drizzling rain; and curst they be, were such as chanted of     life, that ground were garden

which you know’st to my heart, lopped-off     heads, silk canvases, and bounteous shower that I cannot     seen as yet the village streets at twenty, my limbs I faint!     Unkind t’ a beast that

makes or fills! Thou wage mute! With, Let     us look like prisoners’ cots and we failed rehab and jail     sentence sayes, that always will sag toward me with smiling     faithfully.—Oh my Camel!

[justalittlespore]

This reminds me of the opening to The Silver Key, an HP Lovecraft story (not one of the horror ones) which was pretty important to me in my formative years:

When Randolph Carter was thirty he lost the key of the gate of dreams. Prior to that time he had made up for the prosiness of life by nightly excursions to strange and ancient cities beyond space, and lovely, unbelievable garden lands across ethereal seas; but as middle age hardened upon him he felt these liberties slipping away little by little, until at last he was cut off altogether. No more could his galleys sail up the river Oukranos past the gilded spires of Thran, or his elephant caravans tramp through perfumed jungles in Kled, where forgotten palaces with veined ivory columns sleep lovely and unbroken under the moon. He had read much of things as they are, and talked with too many people. Well-meaning philosophers had taught him to look into the logical relations of things, and analyse the processes which shaped his thoughts and fancies. Wonder had gone away, and he had forgotten that all life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value the one above the other. Custom had dinned into his ears a superstitious reverence for that which tangibly and physically exists, and had made him secretly ashamed to dwell in visions. Wise men told him his simple fancies were inane and childish, and he believed it because he could see that they might easily be so. What he failed to recall was that the deeds of reality are just as inane and childish, and even more absurd because their actors persist in fancying them full of meaning and purpose as the blind cosmos grinds aimlessly on from nothing to something and from something back to nothing again, neither heeding nor knowing the wishes or existence of the minds that flicker for a second now and then in the darkness. They had chained him down to things that are, and had then explained the workings of those things till mystery had gone out of the world. When he complained, and longed to escape into twilight realms where magic moulded all the little vivid fragments and prized associations of his mind into vistas of breathless expectancy and unquenchable delight, they turned him instead toward the new-found prodigies of science, bidding him find wonder in the atom’s vortex and mystery in the sky’s dimensions. And when he had failed to find these boons in things whose laws are known and measurable, they told him he lacked imagination, and was immature because he preferred dream-illusions to the illusions of our physical creation.

You can read the rest for free (public domain) here:

Here is something I’ve learned that made my life better. You can believe in the efficacy of science, and also that there’s magic in the world. You can choose to believe in whatever makes the world more wonderful and livable for you as long as it hurts no one. You can believe, for example, that the trees you walk by often notice you, or the crows in your area recognize you when you go outside. You can notice special places in your area and believe there are quiet beings there that you can leave small gifts for or that something in the little stream nearby is pleased when you visit. What possible harm can it do to believe something like that? Why deny yourself that if it brings you joy? People try to get you to believe there are all these things wrong with you and wrong with the world, all kinds of things that make you sad or mad. Why not choose a few things to believe on purpose to make you glad? Why not be an OC in your own secret story?