#Graviton is the worst

[mysticstronomy]

DOES TIME STOP IN A BLACK HOLE??

Blog#427

Wednesday, August 14th, 2024.

Welcome back,

Theoretical physics went into crisis mode in 1974, when ­Stephen Hawking first argued that black holes destroy information. Hawking showed that a black hole can evaporate, gradually transforming itself and anything it consumes into a featureless cloud of radiation. During the process, information about what fell into the black hole is apparently lost, violating a sacred principle of physics.

This remained an open problem for almost 50 years, but the pieces started falling into place in 2019 through research that I was involved in. The resolution is based on a new understanding of spacetime and how it can be rewired through quantum entanglement, which leads to the idea that part of the inside of a black hole, the so-called island, is secretly on the outside.

To understand how we arrived at these new ideas, we must begin with the inescapable nature of black holes.

Nothing seems more hopeless than trying to get out of a black hole—in fact, this impossibility is what defines black holes. They are formed when enough matter is confined within a small enough region that spacetime collapses in on itself in a violent feedback loop of squeezing and stretching that fuels more squeezing and stretching. These tidal forces run to infinity in finite time, marking the abrupt end of an entire region of spacetime at the so-called black hole singularity—the place where time stops and space ceases to make sense.

There is a fine line within the collapsing region that divides the area where escape is possible from the point of no return. This line is called the event horizon. It is the outermost point from which light barely avoids falling into the singularity. Unless a thing travels faster than light—a physical impossibility—it cannot escape from behind the event horizon; it is irretrievably stuck inside the black hole.

The one-way nature of this boundary is not immediately problematic. In fact, it is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity. The danger starts when this theory interacts with the wild world of quantum mechanics.

Quantum theory redeems black holes from being the greedy monsters they are made out to be. Every calorie of energy they consume they eventually give back in the form of Hawking radiation—energy squeezed out of the vacuum near the event horizon.

The idea of getting something out of nothing may sound absurd, but absurdity is not the worst allegation made against quantum mechanics. The emptiness of the vacuum in quantum theory belies a sea of particles—photons, electrons, gravitons, and more—that conspire to make empty space feel empty. These particles come in carefully arranged pairs, acting hand in hand as the glue that holds spacetime together.

Originally published on https://www.scientificamerican.com

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, August 17th, 2024)

"DID MARS EVER CONTAIN WATER??"

[rowanmuppet]

oh and mischa too!!!

Okay I just wrote the penny one and I am on a ROLL so. Mischa bachinski my beloved

- First of all. Mischa has two hands and I won't hear otherwise. Talia is REAL damn it but Mischa is also bisexual and in love with Noel. End of

- He watched the titanic for the first time on the phone with talia and cried EMBARRASSINGLY hard. Not embarrassing because he's supposed to be manly or whatever, embarrassing like he woke up the next day and his eyes were almost swollen shut from crying so hard. Like that movie really affected him

- Noel would ask to watch it with him and he'd immediately say no because he doesn't want to be literally dehydrated from crying again

- He would put talia on the phone during choir and everyone would talk to her (more like them telling Mischa what to say and him translating but they all love her)

- Ocean would insist on singing whatever song they're working on for her and she'd just sit there like wow 😁👍!!! She has no idea what's going on but she's along for the ride

- He is trying to teach everyone Ukrainian to moderate success

- he has an annoyed siblings relationship with ocean which everyone says but seriously!!! They get on each other's nerves so much but ocean would kill a man for him and he's DEFINITELY gotten into a fight for her

- picks ocean up like a folding chair and carries her around. Or like a cat under the armpits and so she's just dangling there

- absolutely terrified of rollercoasters but went on the cyclone anyway because he's a manly man. Obviously. But then he died

- literally almost threw up getting off the graviton. Thought he was literally going to die

- wholeheartedly believes in Santa. Literally will not be convinced he isn't real. Everyone in the choir feeds into this and says their presents to him were from Santa and were dropped off at their house instead of his bc he doesn't have a chimney (in like an everyone lives situation cause yk they weren't really friends before)

- really it's because his adoptive parents didn't get him anything but he doesn't have to know that they're supposed to be santa

- is actually genuinely successful on YouTube 😭 nobody wants to believe him and I doubt the choir before the accident cared to check they just half listened to him talk about his songs like "yeah that's great buddy" but he has a pretty decent following

- I'm sure a good amount of them are ironic but that's okay

- he'd get one of those "THIS SHIT IS FIRE 🔥🔥🔥🔥 PUT IT OUT 🔥🔥🔥" comments and take it as a compliment

- has unmedicated ADHD. I don't make the rules I only enforce them

- he literally can't sit still in any situation at all ever, nor can he focus on anything if there isn't 5 other things going on. Constantly understimulated. Constance would give him a fidget spinner and his grades would immediately go up a letter or two

- honestly Mischa and constance are best friends in my heart

- she would try to teach him how to bake/cook and he would burn everything

- "Mischa no wonder it's burnt! It's been on high for 15 minutes it's just a grilled cheese" "why cook for long time on low heat when I could cook for short time on high heat 🤨??" "because it will burn before the cheese melts!!!!"

- Ocean is PISSED that he's always at Constance's house when she goes over to hang out (she would spend virtually all her time there fr) but Constance's little brother loves him

- wears almost exclusively sweat pants/giant t shirts with ironic slogans. "The worst day of fishing beats the best day of 'court ordered' anger management classes'"

- the kind of mf to wear gym shorts and slides in 4 inches of snow like dude 😦

- lets noel paint his nails every time they hang out. immediately forgets they're painted and either smudges it or if it somehow manages to dry bites/picks it off immediately

- he will never complain but he hates the way it makes his nails feel heavier

- ocean would get him a sticker book to motivate him to do his homework (his grades are not good and if they get too low he won't be allowed to participate in choir)

- so now his books/homework are covered in stickers

- spends a devastatingly long time on his hair only for it to immediately be ruined when he leaves the house

- it's almost impressive how quickly it just turns into a total mess

- that's what the hat is for

- regarding my penny rock head canon. He gets SO EXCITED when she gives him one

- "this reminded me of you" *least visually interesting rock you've ever seen* "YOOOOO IT IS LIKE ME!!!"

- not a big fan of the bugs though

- genuinely terrified of them. He'd see penny with bugs and feel like ants are on him for the next several minutes

That's all for rn cause this is getting long!!

[torchshippod]

Crew Profiles Part 2: Doctor Bleddyn Stevens

Ahoy Cosmonauts! First of all, I’m not dead! And neither is this project! Apologies for the radio silence everyone. Mary had a minor issue with the cloak and was trapped in a pocket dimension for a few months. Read: A series of upheaving life events including a total career change and a month spent in the worst place known to mankind: Texas, shudder, meant I was unable to make any progress with Forbidden Space. But I'm back now, and we're hopefully back on track! The pilot still needs some time in the oven, but with some luck we should be able to release it soon. Until then, enjoy the first dive into one of the characters of Forbidden Space.

Who better to start with than the person responsible for maintaining Mary Gillham-32’s most important component: Her crew. Meet Doctor Bleddyn Stevens:

Art by the excellent @whirligig-girl

Broken bones, radiation poisoning, acute psychological trauma. If suffering from any of these, you can’t go wrong with seeing Mary Gillham’s acerbic, long-suffering Doctor. Stevens is responsible for all aspects of the crew’s health, both physical and mental. It's his job to both patch people up after an away mission gone wrong, and act as rocket therapist, staving off mental ailments from cabin fever to imposter syndrome. And while his dry disposition and devilishly sharp eyebrows have been known to rankle, he brings a steadying level-headedness to all aspects of the job that his crewmates can’t help but find comforting. It doesn't hurt that he also happens to be the one with the keys to the rocket’s psychedelics cabinet. 

“Please, I’m your doctor, of course I have the best psychedelics.”

But he’s not just the doctor/therapist. Like everyone in the Mary Gilham program, Stevens pulls double duty. He’s also the rocket’s tactical specialist. Responsible for operating Mary’s all important cloaking device and her variety of torpedoes, ranging from mundane nuclears to the exotic graviton warheads. One of the most destructive weapons in the IUR's arsenal and enough to ensure that size is no object. It's his job to direct space-borne engagements, formulating the battle plans that ensure Mary comes out on top, or at the very least, unscathed.

"Torpedoes will have impacted by now. Deploying periscope, outputting visual to the main… oh… Would you look at that… We’ll have to add a new asteroid belt to the charts…"

While the ability to remain calm in a crisis is a prerequisite for any cosmonaut, it’s even more so for Stevens. The requirement to perform complex neurosurgery one day and fire continent-threatening anti-matter warheads the next needs a very specific disposition. Stevens is calm, analytical, and generally the voice of restraint and consideration in any situation, although often parcelled with a sarcastic thrust his crewmates have learned to put up with. He takes this requirement for coolness and clear-thinking so far he actively refuses to indulge in any kind of mind-altering substances, even for medicinal purposes. A practice his fellow cosmonauts often find baffling to concerning.

"What? But he keeps the biggest variety of recreational drugs I’ve ever seen!" "Apparently for morale only." - Specialists Yureli and Martin on Stevens

Perhaps the most notable thing about Doctor Stevens though, is that he is an almost unprecedentedly strong Psychic Void, an incredibly rare trait that renders him invisible to all but the strongest of psychic phenomena, and incapable of interacting with any psychic technology. While being immune to mind altering phenomena may sound like a boon, it’s an impediment he’s uncharacteristically sensitive about. For one he's unable to use the psychic translator, forcing him to rely on inaccurate machine translations and learning languages the old fashioned way to communicate. Luckily, he’s a prodigal linguist, and is fluent in over a dozen languages, Human and alien.

"You’d be amazed how many languages you can learn without a psychic translator atrophying your brain. Though I admit I do envy it sometimes. Cetacean Auxlang is murder on the throat."

Perhaps the largest issue being a psychic void presents however, is the wedge it drives between him and Mary Gilham-32’s resident psychic, Yvette Martin. To someone whose view of the universe is coloured by psychic impressions, the lack of all empathic feedback makes the doctor come across as cold and unfeeling at best, and at worst, impenetrable and untrustworthy… 

"Anyway, she gave me this little Voxyte entertainment device that makes holograms. They look, totally real. You can touch them and interact with them and everything. I mean, it’s just dialogue trees and a basic language model, but they’re totally convincing. Except… I can’t feel them. Their minds. They're like... hollow... That’s what you’re like! uh ex... except, I mean, you’re a real person! Obviously!" " I am? That’s a relief, I was beginning to get concerned." - Martin and Stevens, on holograms.

So there you have it, Doctor Bleddyn Stevens. A steady, reliable cosmonaut who can't be beaten in a crisis. Or a sarcastic prick with a stick up his arse, depending on who you ask and how recently they had their mandatory medical. We'll be doing some more dives into the rest of the cast soon, so watch this space!

[avengersrewatch]

E1&2: "The Breakout"

Okay, I'm skipping ahead to the actual episodes, damnit.

"The Breakout" is the episode that forms the Avengers as a team. In that way it is like The Avengers the MCU film. As I have already noted, the Avengers cast is different. Here it is the original cast from the comic books (Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Ant-man and the Wasp. Captain Americas was NOT one of the original Avengers, though he came in pretty early /nerdrant) .

The story that brings them together is different. In the EMHU, it's been established that SHIELD maintains four super villain prisons (The Big House, The Cube, The Raft, and the Vault) will definitely be exploding (metaphorically ) soon. I believe we have seen the Raft in Captain America: Civil War and The Cube in She-Hulk. I guess the Quantum Realm is basically the Big House for Kang right now.

And, of course, this is the episode where all the super villains break out. Nick Fury, who as director of SHIELD is in charge of the prisons, is both asking these civilians for help, and getting in their way a bit. This is a similar dynamic to what we see in the MCU. They are SORT of doing government work, but not REALLY.

As with most of this series (since it was made in 2010), Iron Man is the focus. We start with him, searching for his "stolen" weapons. And we follow him as he learns about the breakout at the Vault.

I'm not sure if it's coincidence or just that this character has been both a villain and a member of the Avengers, but here Hawkeye, like it the movie, both good and bad. He is "escaping" prison but also helping Tony.

There is something kind of neat about the multiple prison structure here. Each Avenger basically has his own prison to defend, and then all them have to work together in the second part to defeat Graviton. (I think this is the only time it has ever been suggested that Graviton is an important Avengers villain. He's just not a top tier guy like Loki to make them come together for their first fight.) Interestingly, the only other two villains kept at the Raft, which is supposed to be the most secure of the Super Villain prisons are Baron Zemo (who we have seen in Captain America: Civil War and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) and the Purple Man (who was the main antagonist for Jessica Jones on Netflix). Both are going to come back on this show, so this is setup. But, yeah, Graviton.

Banner/Hulk secures the Cube. Iron Man (and Hawkeye) take care of the Vault. Ant-Man and the Wasp fight at the Big House, and Thor fights with Fury at the Raft.

The montage of all the bad guys getting their powers back is a lot of fun.

We get a tiny bit of MODOK (who is in Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania) and, of course, the Leader (who will be the villain in Captain America: New World Order)--though we will see much more of him later in GAMMA WORLD.

We also get Doc Sampson. I wonder if Marvel would still have Ty Burrell play that character if they wanted to bring him in for a Hulk project. I'm gonna guess that unlike Tim Roth and Tim Blake Nelson, he'd get recast.

Thor and Jane Foster's dynamic is very cute here.

There is a bit where Hank Pym says he's "disappointed" in Mandrill and that he had "come so far in counseling" and I just want to say, that is not true. Mandrill is gross. He's the worst. His power is rape. Ant-Man is a terrible counselor. (It's crazy that both Mandrill and Purple Man are included on this show for children. Both rapists.)

Anyway, the second part of the episode reveals that SHIELD made Graviton into a supervillain through weird government experiments. (I don't know why the government keeps experimenting on people in the Marvel Comics or EMH universe. It seems to go badly for them most of the time.) He is, understandably, kind of angry that he was imprisoned without any kind of trail or anything.

Notice it's Tony who rushes in to help Janet, not Hank?

Anyway, I don't really like Janet's part of the fight here. She is mostly considered just a pest, except when she aids Hulk, which is more moral support. She's not really shown as an equal threat as the other Avengers. Later fights will prove she is, but here she's still kind of a joke and I don't like it.

What she does do is suggest the men help each other. As if no human male would ever work with other men on their own. It has to be a lady who is like "let's be a team!" If I were a man I'd be kind of insulted by that.

What's funny is that Graviton lifts New York (???) up as a floating city. They do that in Avengers: Age of Ultron. I guess it's an interesting visual but I would never think to do that if I had powers.

Of course Graviton's downfall is mistakenly saying he is "the strongest one there is" and then immediately getting hit by the Hulk. Hulk, we learn, is stronger than gravity itself. Everyone knows that's his thing. Being strong. And the moment where Hulk is surprised Janet would help him (because he is a monster) is oddly touching, but over-played.

The team triumphantly stands over their fallen foe, a shot that is done very similarly in The Avengers.

Thor likes having new friends and wants to go drinking. Fury suggests they all become SHIELD agents to track down all the former prisoners but Tony wants to do it as a team--just not with SHIELD.

Let's call them the Avengers! (Can we drink now?)

Rating: Recommend!

[balaurbondoc316]

Also this is what Beyond Endless Horizons/ The Graviton looks like. He scugged himself on accident trying to transfer into a better puppet (missed his aim). He’s like a foot tall. He needs 10,000-30,000 Kcal a day on account of being a living rarefraction cell. He’s a cartoon supervillain. He’s a fascist dictator that manipulates people for fun and profit. He’s Just A Little Guy. He’s a laid back funnyman. He has sososo many control issues. He just wants his best friend to be happy again. He wishes his best friend had stayed dead. He once fucked his head administrators spouse behind his back. Said administrator’s’ echo is parked right outside his chamber and they get into a screaming match every time he leaves. He refers to the unfinished would’ve-been iterator nearby as “The Abortion”. He once spent a century brute forcing password guesses on its construction terminals to get access to the iterator dev tools. He’s the worlds best group senior. He’s the worst group senior you could possibly have. He has beef with his old puppet, which spontaneously reactivated while in storage. He’s trapped on an island in the middle of nowhere. He’s a look into how righteous anger and a want to make an unjust world just can turn you into the very thing you hated in the first place. He’s a shitpost OC. He deserves to be put in a blender.

Anyway I’ll probably have a ref/ character write up for him sometime in the next three days.

[thetoxicgamer]

Insta-win Destiny 2 glitch forces Iron Banner changes

I think this Destiny 2 issue is the worst I've seen in a while. The Iron Banner in Destiny 2 is touted as one of the multiplayer game's pinnacle activities, a venue where the finest of the greatest can display their prowess in magnificent conflict. This week, though, everything changed because of a bug that lets players use the exotic Khepri's Horn to almost quickly win games. This Destiny 2 bug ultimately caused Bungie to completely alter the game style being played after eluding earlier attempts to address the problem, leaving players somewhat sorry to see it depart. The bizarre glitch occurs when a Titan player wearing Khepri’s Horn with the Drengr’s Lash Strand aspect places down a rally barricade next to the first capture point. Instead of the standard initial points for capturing, every player standing inside the zone instead racks up around a dozen points, totalling over 60 if every player is present. That’s not enough to hit the victory score, but it is enough to trigger Destiny 2’s ‘mercy rule’ – designed to put an early stop to one-way stomps – and hand victory to the team using it. Of course, it didn’t take long for word to spread, and soon nearly every Iron Banner lobby was filled with players making use of the glitch. Because only one person on the team needs to activate it, you would run into it in basically every game, meaning the whole mode descended immediately into pure insta-win chaos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUfEb5CrRW8 This might seem frustrating if you actually want to play the mode, but Guardians are an odd bunch, and they largely ran with the whole thing. It presented, after all, a great way to rapid-fire through Iron Banner matches, win or lose, and net yourself rapid rewards. Bungie, of course, did what they reasonably had to do and decided that, for now, Khepri’s had to go. So Bungie disabled it – or at least that was the plan. Unfortunately, players who had the exotic equipped found that they still had the helmet on, and were still able to perform the trick. Given the rampant popularity of the bug, many players did in fact still have it equipped, and so the problem continued unabated. In desperation, Bungie took one of the only other options available to them, short of disabling Iron Banner altogether. “The game type for Iron Banner has changed from Control to Eruption,” a Tweet from the BungieHelp support account reads, “Get your kill streaks on!” Tweet from BungieHelp account: "The gametype for Iron Banner has changed from Control to Eruption. Get your kill streaks on!" Response from TryhardTristan: "Why? I much more enjoyed getting free wins or losses in 10 seconds instead of having to fight 6 graviton lances."That’s that for now then; us Control fans are left wanting for this week, but at least people can get back to their competitive play. Not that everyone is satisfied. “I much more enjoyed getting free wins or losses in ten seconds instead of having to fight six Graviton Lances,” reads one response to the tweet. I can’t necessarily argue there. We’ve outlined the best Destiny 2 builds for those of you trying to climb the ranks in a more by-the-book manner, and we’ve just updated our list of free Destiny 2 emblem codes so you can do so in style. You’ll also want to check out the latest news on Destiny 2 The Final Shape, the upcoming expansion currently scheduled for next year. Read the full article

[gingerbreadmonsters]

i STRONGLY hc that honey is empowered, so every time guy comes back home rambling about some 'giant dog' or 'weird flirty guy wiping blood off his shirt, what the fuck was that about?' they have to try SO hard not to laugh because they know exactly what's happening here - they're waiting for the paperwork to come through so they can tell guy what's actually been going on

guy, very disturbed: -and there must be some kind of weird weather going on, 'cause it was like the air pressure just kept going up and down, and the poor guy kept trying not to drop all the boxes, and-

honey, who is in lasko's DAMN 101 class: woah!! no way!! yeah, wow, that's crazy, imagine that...

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #158: When Avengers Clash!

April, 1977

What is not immediately evident is that we are facing another change in the creative team.

Steve Englehart was kicked off the book after #150. After that, Gerry Conway took over with an assist by Jim Shooter in #151 and #156. With this issue, Jim Shooter takes over until #177, a little after he becomes Editor-in-Chief.

And its another rough transition.

I don’t actually remember being a huge fan of Shooter’s Avengers on my first read through so I’ll see if that holds up. But in this issue at least, we get off to a semi-rocky start.

Last time: Wonder Man came back to life, causing non-ending angsts in the Vision right when he was feeling good about himself and his capacity for emotions. Also, a metaphor in the shape of a stone statue of Black Knight beat up the team but punched itself to death against Vision.

This time: Some continuity hiccups.

We start off with the Vision staring moodily, as he is wont to do, but specifically at the broken statue of Black Knight.

The heap of broken statue is a lot more recognizable as specific body parts then it was last time but it does make for a more striking visual. Also, Statue Knight is staring into my soul and its not okay.

Wonder Man walks into the room supporting Scarlet Witch, both in costume. Which is one of those continuity hiccups because they were both already in the room in a pile of defeated heroes and also not in costume.

So I have to believe that they left while Vision was ‘fighting’ Statue Knight specifically to get changed and then came back, instead of helping.

But seeing Wonder Man supporting Wanda is just too much for Vision. He angrily announces that because of Wonder Man he has already relinquished his foolish delusions of humanity and will soon relinquish his wife BECAUSE A ROBOT HAS NO RIGHT TO ONE but hey until he does, hands off.

And then he punches Wonder Man for copping a friendly demeanor.

Also, I notice he hasn’t consulted Wanda with this. Which just goes to show that maybe he’s the most human of all because real human men similarly disregard her emotions and wants and needs.

Its a wonder she didn’t murder them all sooner.

Anyway, so now they’re fight.

Even though Wonder Man was knocked out by a mailbox last time, it will take more than a single punch and also SOLAR BEAM to take him down this time. He’s apparently getting his strength back and also he’s tired of getting knocked out by cheap shots so much.

He tries to tackle Vision but, y’know, intangible.

Except Vision apparently has the human emotion of shit talking because he decides that he’ll humble Wonder Man on his own terms instead of just remaining untouchably intangible.

Of course, even if he’s diamond hard, Wonder Man can just knock him off his feet by attacking the ground.

Its fine, Tony will pay for it.

Speaking of the cool exec with a heart of steel, he comes to underneath the computer bank that Black Knight tipped over on top of him.

Because apparently Shooter skimmed the previous issue?

Because Iron Man was one of the heap of heroes that should already be in the room where Wonder Man and Vision are fighting.

But I’ll try not to harp on it too much.

Back to the fight where Vision continues to ignore Wanda’s desires by exchanging blows with Wonder Man even as she insists that they cut it out.

I guess he gets tired of punching a fellow tough customer about the chest because he tries to go for his insta-win sure fire finishing move and fists Wonder Man through the chest.

But Wonder Man is able to resist the pain and punches Vision in the face.

He’s not the only one that the sure fire fizzled on but I think it usually just doesn’t work at all rather than ‘I say that hurts like the dickens -pawnch-’

The rest of the heroes that should already be in the room show up and Scarlet Witch begs one of them to stop this nonsense.

But Iron Man goes “Let’s just let them fight it out!” but stops just short of suggesting they bet on the outcome.

Tony. Geez. I know they have to work out their issues but a) this is probably not the most productive way? and b) they’re liable to cause a lot of damage to your home before they finish.

Okay. I know the theory is that they have to get it out of their system but guess what? IT DOES NOT WORK. They have this exact same fight again during the Busiek era and eventually have to use their words to clearly express what their thoughts and feelings are, instead of their fists. Because frequently, words work better than fists in the very specific field of robo-angst.

In one of the few times its a disadvantage to be a robot instead of an ionically enhanced human, Vision’s solar batteries are running low while Wonder Man is just getting fired up.

In desperation, Vision drains his solar batteries even faster by using SOLAR BEAM right at Wonder Man’s face.

It’s SUPER EFFECTIVE!

But even though this apparently hurt worse than anybody ever hurt him before (even worse than dying!), Wonder Man has enough juice to BWA-AM Vision.

And now that both heroes have knocked the shit out of each other and are too shaky on their feet to continue, now Iron Man tells them to cut it out.

And now that he has only now decided it was a problem, he scolds Wonder Man for breaking the mansion even though he’s a guest.

Oh and he also tells Vision to act like a man or man-shaped robot instead of a child. Or you’re grounded, mister.

And now that the fight is over, Jarvis shows up to make them all feel bad. He also took the time after waking up from a stone cold beating to put on some fresh clothes but also he fielded an emergency call and told them they were shit out of luck because the Avengers were dealing with personal biz.

Also, are they expecting him to sweep up the stone gentleman or should he call a morgue?

Jarvis’ ploy, if it were that and I’m not simply making up motives, works. Because Iron Man can’t believe that they’ve gotten to the point where they’re turning people away to wallow in their own troubles.

Which might but then again might not be fair. How long did you watch Vision and Wonder Man punch each other?

Before that they were unconscious because a statue beat them up and before that it was Christmas damnit. Can’t they have just one quiet day?? Also, is it still Christmas? They never mention it again. I think they were unconscious through the entire holiday.

But, yeah, obviously just sitting back and watching Vision and Wonder Man beat each other up instead of literally any other thing was a bad decision and you should feel bad, Iron Man.

Meanwhile, we finally get to the plot of the issue.

Because apparently! Vision and Wonder Man’s tension coming to a head? Wasn’t enough of a plot!?

I’d usually discuss this at the end but here goes:

This issue, if it was going to have Vision and Wonder Man punching each other in the head because of Vision’s poor ability to both communicate and deal effectively with his emotions, should have been just about that.

And if the fight was only going to be part of the issue before moving onto something else, that something else should have been thematically connected. As it is, this issue feels disjointed.

It feels like Shooter felt obliged to wrap up this plot thread before moving onto stuff he’d rather write about.

And dang will I have small, mostly neutral comments to say about the stuff Shooter would rather write about. Later. After we’ve seen a couple examples.

So the plot happens in Canada because Marvel Canada is a fascinatingly terrible den of evil, worse than a thousand Mos Eisleys. Specifically a research community in the Canadian Rockies called Research City because scientists are bad at naming the things, some of the times.

And the worst scientist has taken over this research hamlet (it has fewer than ten buildings, it is not a city).

Frank Hall.

And he is nettled because one of the other scientists has disobeyed orders and tried to contact the outside world and request the Avengers’ help.

That is not how we do in Research Commonwealth, JOSEPH.

Just for that, Frank Hall is taking the entire community off the map. TRY TO SNEAK OUT NOW, JOSEPH.

And then he crushes Joseph with kirby krackle.

Not to death but enough that Joseph’s wife Judy begs Frank Hall to stop hurting him.

Frank does not take it well. He gets some real squinty eye face going on for reasons that will be revealed later. But he doesn’t kill Joseph. Just has him taken away and locked up.

Because he just had a wonderful, awful idea.

Which is him beating up the Avengers.

He just now realized that he could become a supervillain instead of being a tinpot bully dictator of a small research community.

...

Frank Hall has sort of limited ambitions considering his scope of power.

Also, he forces Judy to make him a supervillain suit.

Its not specified whether she made it to his exact specifications or spitefully made it to make him look like a prat but he kinda does.

Oh also his backstory: It is every backstory ever about a scientist fucking up science so hard that he becomes a supervillain.

Except slower.

He was working on a teleport beam, doubled the power to see what would happen, and accidentally gave himself gravity powers.

Instead of immediately going megalomaniacal, he at first used his powers to throw stuff at people’s heads. Because, as mentioned, Frank Hall is a petty prick.

But then people started to shun him, because he kept throwing stuff at their heads.

So he proved their impressions of him correct by seizing control over the entire not-city and pushing people around.

And that’s why Frank Hall, Graviton, is the worst.

Also, he’s an entitled, harassing bastard.

Remember how he got angry that Judy didn’t want Joseph to be hurt? It was because he decided that he deserves her. Because she’s his fave.

She’s a bit distracted even though he’s all touching up on her face though because behind his back she noticed the Avengers standing outside the window watching this whole thing with evident disgust.

So she does the thing that everyone does in such a situation and unconvincingly goes “tell me more” but Frank Hall is an entitled idiot bastard and falls for it.

Not that it matters.

Because another woman, Raquel, who was jealous of Judy, bursts in and announces that the Avengers are RIGHT BEHIND YOU.

And the gig is up so the Avengers dramatically fly through the window.

(Attack instead of Assemble? Whats the deeeeeal??)

Things immediately go to hell.

Graviton smashes Vision into the ground with gravity and then blows the rest of the Avengers away with anti-gravity. Because sure.

Vision increases his mass to max mass to max his muscles but Graviton just makes him weightless and flings him through the roof.

Clearly, it is time to pull out the big gun.

Cap readies his mighty shield because he knows that when he flings his mighty shield all who oppose his shield must yield. But Graviton saw through that ploy and increase the mass of the shield.

Now Cap is opposing the mighty shield and must yield. By getting crushed.

Although what kind of posture were you in, Cap, where your shield getting super heavy all of a sudden made you fall backwards with it on top of you instead of just dropping it?

Meanwhile, Judy tries to run away because honestly, wouldn’t you? And Raquel beans her in the back of the head with a vase maybe. Because Raquel is not a great person. Also, this will be important later.

Iron Man and Scarlet Witch attempt to blast Graviton but he just... gravities the floor up so that it blocks the... attack...

I don’t think Graviton knows what gravity is.

He says he made the section of the floor lighter than helium so that it would rise up to protect him but. It was still connected to other floor that was not lighter than helium.

Also, remember when Scarlet Witch’s powers had evolved so she had control over natural forces.

Bet those would come in handy here instead of just shooting generic energy. Alas. The thread has been lost.

Anyway, Graviton condenses some floor fragments into a super-dense sphere and hucks it at the two heroes.

Because armor is better than not armor in this scenario, Iron Man shields Scarlet Witch from the sphere but they both get knocked out anyway.

Although at least her head is still head shaped and not salsa.

Wasp and Yellowjacket try their patented and recently useless Fly Around While Tiny And Annoy Someone battle technique but Graviton knocks them out with a pencil.

It sure is exciting watching those two consistently be useless. =\

Finally, since its just the two of them left, Beast and Wonder Man rush Graviton together but he just drops the ceiling on them. While boasting about how he wishes there were more Avengers because of how easy this is. Womp womp.

Anyway the Avengers are now all defeated. Even Vision. Who we last saw crashing through the ceiling while weightless and also at his maximum density so something like that shouldn’t be enough to knock him out?

Maybe the ceiling was made of mailbox.

And okay. This kind of stomp happens to the Avengers sometimes and with increasing frequency in the near future. But at least Graviton’s backstory had him dicking with his powers for a while before using them in a fight.

Imagine how embarrassing it would be if he were pulling off this kind of nonsense after having just woken up from a coma and never practicing his powers.

Anyway, now nothing can stop him probably and he’ll rule the world possibly.

And Raquel smugly thinks that she’ll rule it at his side because she has some issues she needs to work though.

Next time: More of this. YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE HOW GRAVITON IS DEFEATED probably.

Hey, you should follow @essential-avengers. Why? When I get twenty followers, I’ll do a bonus post where I look at some Alternate Avengers. Avengers from the future? From when mangas roamed the Earth? Or from an alternate universe? Up to you!

[haarute]

When there’s a Zarya in the game

When there’s two Zaryas in the game

[redvanillabee]

What is the worst meta you have encountered. What claim has been so preposterous that you have contemplated deleting the Internet. Please bless us with others’ failures of critical thinking

Trust me, Mundie, when I say I have wiped most of them from my brain. Otherwise I will surely have gone insane.

I do remember reading something that is clearly a headcanon being billed as a meta. I think it was something for TFATWS; someone was literally headcanoning what Sam and Bucky might have done during the off-screen downtime, either between episodes or in the time-skip in a montage. They were headcanons inspired by canon events and characterisation, sure, but they are theories, speculations, and creative writing on what Sam and Bucky have gone up to in that unmentioned time. Then that OP tagged the post as 'meta' and I just, *facepalm* my child, that is not meta. Meta is analysis. You wrote a headcanon post. Please learn the word.

The actual 'bad' take I've seen isn't one meta, but I see people keep trying to refute it, and it is: the idea that AC/AOS is somehow not MCU canon, and they need Marvel to somehow 'adopt' AC/AOS back and 'make it MCU canon'.

LIke, first of all, AOS literally is an offshoot of MCU; you have the same Coulson as in The Avengers (2012). Same for AC; you have the same Peggy Carter. Please. (Not to mention the fact that James D’arcy’s Jarvis has already been adopted into the MCU, a la Endgame.)

There was this whole deal about how AOS has split off from MCU from S5, and I really don't understand. They say that because Daisy prevented Earth from being shattered by her/Graviton, it has created a new branching timeline and therefore is no longer in the same MCU timeline.

Which. My brother in MCU. Allow me to point you to Agents of SHIELD Season 5 Episode 20.

Thanos was heading to Earth as the events of AOS S5 were unfolding. I really would say when Daisy prevented the Great Quakening from blowing Earth apart, she ensured that the real MCU timeline could continue, that there would still be an Earth for Thanos to land on and for the events of Infinity War to take place. How have they created a branching timeline please enlighten me.

Then those same people were saying that S6 was definitely not in the MCU timeline, because no one got blipped and the team did not address the Snappening. Again, my brother in MCU, do you know which other main MCU team didn’t get blipped? That’s right, OG6 Avengers. Just because no one got blipped doesn’t mean the blip didn’t take place.

As for the whole ‘the blip didn’t get addressed’ thing, I think we can all agree that Marvel is pulling a lot of strings in the background deciding what can/can’t AOS mention, but the plot of S6 does not suggest that it can’t take place concurrently with the aftermath of the blip. Think about how small the scope of S6 and S7 actually is. They were mostly in the Lighthouse, I think there was one park scene, they were in rural Ohio for a while, in a desolate temple somewhere...and then they travelled into the past! For all we know, while Daisy was busy containing that atomic bomb on Sarge’s death mobile, Steve could be out there holding a support group with gay Joe Russo.

There were some points made out there about continuity issues between AC/AOS and main MCU, but like—look, Marvel is three plot points wearing one big trench coat pretending to be one cinematic universe. There are loads of show out there with blatant plot holes or continuity issues, like Glee, but we don’t go around saying ‘x episode of Glee doesn’t count as canon Glee-verse’, right?

(Also. Since the beginning of the MCU, Disney’s been putting more and more Marvel attractions in Disneylands around the world, where the general premise is at least MCU-adjacent if not compliant. If you take a look at those Marvel attractions, you will find that AC/AOS are at least Disneyland-canon. In Avengers Campus Paris, there’s a restaurant furnished as ‘an old SSR facility’ that showed Peggy’s red hat from AC, as well as a picture of Michael Carter. In Hong Kong Disneyland, they put the Blitzkrieg Button in the Howard Stark section of ‘Stark Expo’, regularly play the AOS theme outside the SHIELD building, and feature the 0-8-4 from S1E02 in the SHIELD equipment room.)

So yea. This turned from lowkey dragging bad meta into writing essentially a counter meta.

[atomicmoths]

Destiny Quotes

Quotes from D1 that resonated with me one way or another. I might do a part two and I’ll even take submissions if you send me them in asks!

“No supplies. Armor in tatters. But the refugees had asked for help. And she had given her word.” -Tale if the Six Coyotes (Shinobu’s Vow)

“Doesn’t matter how good you are- you stay out there too long, you’re not coming back. Not the same way you left, anyway.” -Tevis (Graviton Forfeit)

The Servitors work the engines. The Archon plots the course. But it’s the Kell who stands at the helm. (Kellhunter’s Blood)

“The courage to walk into Darkness, but the strength to return to the Light.” -Parables of the Allspring (Blindsight Legs)

One throne beneath the howling dark. (Cloak of the Sixth Reign)

Every time she pulled the trigger, an enemy of the city died. (Efrideet’s Eye)

In his strong hand the man held a Rose. And his aura burned bright.” (Dregen Yor’s Rose)

“I'll remember the Light. Will it remember me?” -Sai Mota (Cloak of the Duskthorn)

“Run with me, we’ve new trails to stalk (Wolves’ Cloak)

“When the long dark closes around us, we will be the last light.” -Wei Ning (Light of the Great Prism)

Any scholar can understand the theory, but only those who hear the music can make the Light sing. (Sunsinger’s Bond)

“I shrouded myself so when the Light returned I could see it all clearer.” -Parables of the Allspring (Blindsight Vest)

Let the horns be winded, the torches kindled, the banners unfurled. The Iron Lords march again. (Winter’s End)

Show me all that I have yet to rule. (Queen’s Guard Hood)

“I will put an ocean into a thimble. I will build a world on the edge of a blade.” (Hadron Gale Bond)

Eliksni songs still tell of Chelchis, Kell of Stone, who stood before the Maw. (Broken Crown)

“You are a dead thing made by a dead power in the shape of the dead. All you will ever do is kill. You do not belong here. This is a place of life.” (Legend: Black Garden)

Match me in bloodshed / Or in blood be drowned (The Warpriest)

The unfairness of it makes him want to roar. Why does everyone else have this patronage? Why do the Hive have gods and the Vex have sprawling time-bent minds and the Cabal have reinforcements? Why do the Awoken whisper to the stars and listen for the whisper back, the voices from the Jovians, the song in the dark? Why do the Guardians get the Great Machine's blessing, was it like that before the Whirlwind, were there Fallen heroes crowned in Ghosts who strode the battlefield fearless and full of Light? Why do they tell stories about reclaiming the lost glory of humanity, and no stories about the lost glory of Variks' people, the House of Judgment that once kept codes of dignity and law? (Skolas: Defeated)

“It is the lone wolf, once cornered, that has the worst bite.” (Taniks, the Scarred)

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

Ticuu’s Divination

Three points, pushed through forever.

Type: Combat Bow

Slot: Kinetic | Energy | Heavy

Element: Arc | Solar | Void

Perk: Sacred Flame - Hipfiring this weapon fires multiple tracking projectiles. Targets marked by these projectiles explode upon death, or when struck by another Sacred Flame's explosion.

Trait: Causality Arrows - Arrows fired while aiming down sights cause Sacred Flames to instantly detonate.

Masterworked Trait: Causality Quiver - Perfectly-drawn arrows that detonate Sacred Flame increase arrow damage. Striking targets unaffected by Sacred Flame instead refreshes Causality Quiver's duration.

Ornaments: Hasta Solari, Ferromancer, Solar Astrolabe

Origin & Description: Combining the best traits of Le Monarque and Graviton Lance, Ticuu's has my name written alllllll over it. And also Ticuu's name, because Ticuu was a person. A Cabal psion Flayer, to be specific, who with typical psion inscrutability decided that if he was going to make a bow, he was going to make the most confusing bow possible. It almost certainly cost Ticuu his life, or worse, his existence, to arm this bow; but once it was armed, it never needed to be reloaded. The three arrows inside this bow are not quite real arrows; or maybe they are real, but they're the same three real arrows looped over and over again through time. You don't need any more than three, because the bow doesn't fire them. Instead it fetches a future in which the targets have arrows in them. Or Ticuu fetches that future. Or he already had it, pinned into the bow by the three points in his mind harmonized across time's empty wheel. Consider the name: divination. There are many words for attempting to predict the future, but "divination" in particular evokes the examination of signs and symbols to discern what's already been fated to happen. You didn't choose to put arrows in those targets. They already had arrows in them, in the future, and this bow just fetched that future into the now. Yeah. Psions have an odd relationship to time.

And an odd relationship with the Cabal. The Cabal Empire uses the term "Cabal" to refer to both the empire and its main species, the seven-foot-tall exosuited space rhinos we so often dispatch. While the empire had a number of "client species," annexed races that lived under Cabal "protection," the psions are the most directly subjugated - likely an early conquest by Cabal military seeking to weaponize their abilities. Psions exhibit unique mental powers that function outside the common paracausality-fueled abilities known to Guardians, Hive, eliksni, etc. The Cabal keep the psions "indentured," at best skilled specialists with little hope of advancement, at worst outright slaves, in order to make use of said powers. Within the military psions function as engineers, pilots, and long-range fighters; many serve on the more intellectual side of combat operations, working as after-action analysts and intelligence experts.

A select few are "allowed" to grow into their full adult state, known as a Psion Flayer, though it isn't clear what missing element lets them do so. One theory says they need pure accumulation of knowledge, which might explain why a group tried tapping Rasputin nodes to enable the transformation.* Emperor Calus had a number of psions loyal to his cause, as he seemed to have been the most charitable towards their race - even claiming he would have freed them had he not been deposed - but it was his daughter Empress Caiatl who finally declared all psions free and equal citizens after Xivu Arath's attack, offering them the choice to stay and fight or leave the Cabal fleet. Surprisingly some did elect to continue fighting for the Empress, though the splinter sect that remembered the attempts at the Sundial and with the Almighty expressed their displeasure by attempting to assassinate Zavala (don't worry, he's fine).

*It worked, though Ana opined, "they're just gonna make [Rasputin] mad," so those Flayers might not have lived too long even if we hadn't intervened.

Even in their deliberately weakened state psions are capable of telepathy, telekinesis, and a harmony of minds known as "metaconcert" that allows several psions to pool their mental abilities to solve problems and create shared realities. Psion Flayers wield far more dramatic powers, calling down fire and lightning, freezing combatants in place or teleporting them around at will. A detachment of Psion Flayers assigned to the forward Cabal forces on Mars successfully lowered the small moon Phobos into a physically-unstable orbit around the planet, maintaining a dangerously-low altitude in order to use it as a staging base. One Psion Flayer, Otzot, constructed - or reconstructed - the clairvoyant OXA machine that could view both past and future, though it dispensed that information in maddeningly vague ways. Psions themselves have a complex social structure that included a domination early in their history by a small group of powerful individuals known as "God-Thoughts" who imposed their command on the rest of society by pure mental might; certain schools of religious thought are still considered verboten among them. They have a powerful sense of the community over the individual and a shared reverence for ancestors, implying that their spirits are still present - which, given the odd psion relationship with time, might literally be true.

Whenever I'm called upon to explain Ticuu's Divination to new players, I describe it as "mark for deletion." The tracking hip-fire arrows tag enemies to be deleted, and the ADS ones delete them. Simple. Less simply, Ticuu's is another exotic that has different behavior in hip-fire vs. ADS mode. In hip-fire mode Ticuu's will put up tracking markers on the first three enemies it picks up. Firing it in that mode - you don't have to draw the bow all the way, just pluck the string - sends marker arrows to seek those three targets and tag them with Sacred Flame. You can have more than three marked targets up at a time, limited by the timer on Sacred Flame. Tagged targets don't take burn damage but do show a visual flame effect. That part's important for the next step: switch to ADS mode, draw the bow properly this time, and precision-hit one of the marked targets. Nailing a Sacred Flame aura with an ADS-drawn arrow causes that aura to detonate - and if that detonation nicks another Sacred Flame aura, it'll go off as well. It's like a little homebrew Graviton Lance chain reaction, but only through the targets you've marked.

The catalyst adds a more complicated firing pattern that makes it more useful for heavy single targets: precision hits on a Sacred Flame target give stacks of Causality Quiver, which increases arrow damage. Sending out the marking arrows instead refreshes the timer on the Causality Quiver buff. So you can mark a heavy target with Sacred Flame, detonate it with a precision hit to gain a damage buff, then mark it again to refresh the timer. It requires more thought to pull off but expands the bow's range nicely. And yes, precision arrows will detonate Sacred Flame auras laid down by a teammate, so you can have one player doing nothing but marking targets and a second doing nothing but detonating them when they reach critical mass - or two people marking targets and a third killing them with a different weapon, since Sacred Flame will also detonate if the enemy just dies.

With the addition of Ticuu's Divination in Season 13 (the seasonal exotic of Season of the Chosen, to go with the Cabal theme) we now have crowd control bows in all Light elements: Ticuu's for Solar, Trinity Ghoul for Arc, and Le Monarque for Void. We don't have a Stasis bow yet, but I'm sure they're working on it; if it follows the current pattern for Stasis exotics it'll be in the kinetic slot rather than energy, a welcome addition that would double the number of exotic kinetic bows. In the meantime I'll be out here marking some fools to get deleted.

Destiny 2 Compendium Armarum Exoticarum

[ Ace of Spades | Ager's Scepter | Anarchy | Arbalest | Bad Juju | Bastion | Black Talon | Borealis | Cerberus+1 | The Chaperone | Cloudstrike | Coldheart | Collective Obligation | The Colony | Crimson | Cryosthesia 77K | DARCI | Dead Man's Tale | Deathbringer | Dead Messenger | Devil's Ruin | Divinity | Duality | Edge of Action/Concurrence/Intent | Eriana’s Vow | Eyes of Tomorrow | Fighting Lion | The Fourth Horseman | Forerunner | Gjallarhorn | Grand Overture | Graviton Lance | Hard Light | Hawkmoon | Heartshadow | Heir Apparent | The Huckleberry | Izanagi’s Burden | The Jade Rabbit | Jötunn | The Lament | The Last Word | Legend of Acrius | Leviathan’s Breath | Lord of Wolves | Lorentz Driver | Lumina | Malfeasance | Merciless | MIDA Multi-Tool | Le Monarque | Monte Carlo | No Time to Explain | One Thousand Voices | Osteo Striga | Outbreak Perfected | Parasite | Polaris Lance | Prometheus Lens | The Prospector | Queenbreaker | Rat King | Riskrunner | Ruinous Effigy | Salvation's Grip | Skyburner’s Oath | Sleeper Simulant | Sturm | Sunshot | SUROS Regime | Sweet Business | Symmetry | Tarrabah | Telesto | Thorn | Thunderlord | Ticuu's Divination | Tommy's Matchbook | Tractor Cannon | Traveler's Chosen | Trespasser | Trinity Ghoul | Truth | Two-Tailed Fox | Vex Mythoclast | Vigilance Wing | The Wardcliff Coil | Wavesplitter | Whisper of the Worm | Wish-Ender | Witherhoard | Worldline Zero | Xenophage ]

[jimintomystery]

DS9: "Q-Less"

Vash, a disreputable archaeologist from Earth, returns from the Gamma Quadrant, having went there two years before the wormhole was discovered. The Deep Space Nine crew is confused, until Vash's former friend, the cosmic trickster Q, shows up. Soon the entire station is afflicted with mysterious power outages, and graviton pulses that threaten to pull the station into the wormhole.

From the start, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine promised special guest appearances by characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation. So bringing in Q was a no-brainer, although I'm surprised to learn that this episode started out all about Vash, with Q being added in later. In any case, the story follows up on the TNG episode "Qpid," where Q meets Vash and decides to show her around the universe.

I've already shared my thoughts, good and bad, about Q's appearances in TNG. When Q is written well, his parlor tricks and misanthropic wisecracks conceal a hidden agenda, and the point is to figure out what it is and why he's hiding it. But in the worst Q episodes, there is no point beyond indulging in hokey I Dream of Jeannie tricks and vapid metahumor. And this is the worst of the worst.

I've probably seen this one a hundred times, and I still have no idea what Q is trying to accomplish. He says he wants to reconcile with Vash, he won't take "no" for an answer, and then he just irritates everybody until...he takes "no" for an answer and leaves. There's a vague impression that he's supposed to be nudging everyone into recognizing the threat of Vash's big yellow crystal. Except that he...doesn't do that, really. That crisis would have been resolved the same way whether he showed up or not.

Q's not the only problem with the story, of course. The whole first half of the episode is mostly Vash milling about. She meets the crew, she's given a checkup by Doctor Bashir, she unpacks her stuff, she gives Quark a handjob, etc. There's a whole two-minute scene that's nothing but a boring guy explaining how the assay office works and itemizing Vash's inventory. Two minutes! Every time I see it I am fascinated by how unashamedly dull it is, and yet somehow they kept it in the final cut.

The major characters are left with little else to do but solve, in Q's words, "all this technobabble." In this, Q references a real-world criticism of the fake technical jargon in Star Trek scripts. Granted, the crew throws around a lot of big words with little dramatic impact. But even if you explain it like I'm five, the plot is "When will the spacemen notice the weird space rock is weird?" The technobabble itself isn't the problem, so much as half-baked stories that don't offer anything else.

[lokigodofaces]

(mini) thoughts on loki episode four: the nexus event

under cut for your convenience

mainly about Renslayer, Kang, and just other things I deem important

there is no villain now. i don't think Renslayer will be the main villain. so this could lead to Kang the Conqueror.

in the comics, Renslayer is a love interest to Kang. she isn't interested in him, and Kang starts killing people because of it. i wonder if we are seeing some version of that. that could be why Renslayer became a judge after losing Sylvie, she was unfairly promoted so that Kang could keep a better eye out for her.

this would be a horribly abusive thing going on & i hope marvel doesn't try to be abuse apologists for that, but i don't have much hope.

if Kang is the villain, why is he doing this? Kang loves the multiverse, he wants to conquer all of them.

i think the TVA is a ploy to get rid of branches and people in them that are a threat to his reign.

lets look at Loki, for example. Loki is wicked powerful. Loki is someone with the potential to learn about Kang, more so than, say, Steve Rogers. Kang does not want Loki to know what is happening because Loki would try to stop him.

in addition, Kang knows the dangers of Loki and Thor being cooperative. we all watched TDW and TR, we know that they're able to do a lot while working together, even use Ragnarok to defeat the Goddess of Death. i think this is why in the "sacred timeline," Thor and Loki are pitted against each other, and Odin and Frigga are the way they are. because that depowers an entire family that is very powerful and could maybe stop Kang.

so why was Sylvie arrested when she was? i think it was that Odin had just told her she was adopted (something drastically important considering how things went for the main Loki). i don't think the minutemen could handle Odin, so they waited until Sylvie was alone.

this explains why Sylvie was able to go years without being pruned because, if the TVA's rules are as they seem, Odin and Frigga should've created a branch timeline when Sylvie was conceived and did not have the chromosomes necessary for a male child. i don't think Kang cares if there are branch timelines. i think he cares when there are threats. once Sylvie was told about her heritage, she becomes that much more of a threat and has to be eliminated.

this is why powerful characters have crap happen to them. Kang chose to have a multiverse of Lokis that go through heck in their lives. they chose Lokis to have self-esteem issues, to have contention with Thors, to not have confidence, to go through horrible things. Kang chose to have a universe that had the first person to use all infinity stones insane and not want to use them to check out how the universe works (revealing Kang). a universe where most of the really powerful characters died in the Snap, a way to control them, to take away five years where they could do something. think about it: Strange and Wanda die in the Snap, Loki is killed before that, and this drives Thor to depression. the four most powerful people (in my mind) are taken out, not in a position to cause problems.

what about every other variant? i don't think the TVA knows about all this. if anyone does, it would be Renslayer, but even then i'm not sure. i think that the technology is set up to detect enough nexus events Kang couldn't care about so that the TVA seems legitimate, but really it is impossible for the TVA to prune every branch.

(also i think pruned people generally go to a place where the Time Keepers "create" them, a way to get free labor. so pruning regular people is to Kang advantage to keep a workforce to hunt down the powerful people he fears)

they also made a big deal about Lokis not dying in this ep, so i think that's why pruning and entire timeline is done. trying to kill Loki is inefficient, we all know that. but get rid of the timeline and force them through the TVA? then everything will probably be alright for the story Kang wants.

possibly Loki is in a limbo pocket dimension sort of place with all the Lokis. and Mobius? i theorize pruned TVA agents go to limbo instead of being remade because they have to deal with people remembering them and if they rebelled once, whose to say the won't again? & we know Mobius will show up again driving a car by the Sphinx and Stonehenge (or something similar? can't quite tell what that structure was), so that's how i think it is, but who knows.

this explains how the multiverse HAS BEEN CONFIRMED SINCE DOCTOR STRANGE. the Ancient One literally talked about the "vast multiverse" when she met Stephen. i trust her when it comes to this stuff, more than i do the TVA. so i think there is a multiverse, it is just being selected by Kang to be the least threatening to him.

also Mobius said the TVA deals with a lot of Loki variants, so that adds to this.

as for apocalypses, if we look at real life physics (many worlds theory) hiding in apocalypses does make a new universe. stepping on the wrong leaf in an apocalypse makes a new universe. any choice anyone or anything makes creates a new universe. but Kang is fine with that. because anything in an apocalypse that would be a threat to him is destroyed. i'm jumping into Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for an example. Talbot was powerful as Graviton. i don't know, maybe he would have been threatening to Kang. but in the timeline where he destroyed Earth, he was destroyed as well. so why would Kang care if he attacked Los Angeles instead of Chicago? he wouldn't! as long as Talbot died, there is no threat because he is dead regardless. but, if Talbot had left, if he had survived, then maybe the TVA would've come after him (oh my gosh those poor minutemen that would be hard).

& i don't think Loki falling for himself is the reason behind the nexus event. i think that it is because he made an actual connection with someone for once. and that is important to him being able to heal and to have self love and all those good things. & that is so much more dangerous for Kang.

again, think about it, bad stuff always happens to the most powerful characters of the MCU. Loki, Thor, Stephen, Wanda, Carol, (since i'm into aos), Daisy, Ruby, Talbot, they all had bad things happen to them. things that have repeatedly knocked them down/killed them. they've grown from these things, yes. but they all have traumas they have to work through, things that are protecting Kang. out of all of them, i'd say Loki probably had it the worst. and he is definitely a threat to Kang, but only if he believes he is.

also, if the TVA is a bunch of BS, it means AoS is there! maybe a different universe after all the time travel hijinks they have, but there!

also, since Wanda is a nexus being, i don't know how much the TVA/Kang can control her since she is detached from reality.

i kept talking about Kang, but he's the guy i think would make the most sense. it could be King Loki or He Who Remains or someone else, but i think the fear of Loki is still there.

[nitewrighter]

Gency Week Day 4: Storm

Been a while since I’ve written some proper main continuity action, innit?

---

Mei took a deep breath and adjusted her glasses as their dropship rocked hard in the wind. 

“Back in the old days,” she said as lightning flashed outside the ship’s windows, “It was always assumed that EcoWatch would work hand in hand with Overwatch’s disaster relief. As a researcher, I... I never thought I would, or I suppose I hoped I would never actually be in this role, but as it stands...” she gave a glance back to Tracer in the cockpit, but Tracer was too busy just trying to keep the dropship from being torn apart by the winds. Mei looked back at Genji, Mercy, and Symmetra and Mercy gave her an encouraging nod. “As it stands, Winston has placed me in charge of this mission. We’re to oversee the safe evacuation and shelter of any remaining civilians in the area. Orisa will be working with the evacuees the most closely, keeping them calm and organized. I’ll be using my ice walls to keep the worst of the flooding off of our evacuation paths. Ms. Vaswani, I’m counting on you to keep aerial debris off of civilians and open up teleporters to get our own teammates out of any dangerous situations. Doctor Ziegler, you’ll be overseeing any injured civilians, and Genji and Tracer will scout the surrounding areas for stranded survivors.”

“You can count on us!” said Tracer, and everyone’s ears stung with pressure as Tracer started bringing the dropship down. Mercy’s stomach lurched with their shaking in the storm and Genji looked over at her. Her lips were thinned. Back in the old days, Overwatch would be able to operate relief missions like this with far more resources, collaborate more with the locals, but as it stood, the six of them were the most help they could offer. They touched down on the roof of a parking garage and stepped out into harsh winds and prickling, sideways-spraying rain. Terrapin, Florida wasn’t exactly a massive city, but it was quite densely populated due to it being a cheaper alternative to a lot of resorts and more glamorous and metropolitan cities in the area, housing much of the service workers who worked in the theme parks, restaurants, and hotels of the keys and barrier islands around it. The wind was whipping mist off the ocean, the beach was completely gone under a surging tide, and the palm trees were whipping around in the wind.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” said Orisa, looking around.

“It’s not that different from that Havana mission!” said Tracer, clearly trying to keep everyone calm. But she flinched hard as lightning cracked across the sky.

“...It’s worse,” said Genji and Mercy at the same time.

“Vishkar has done disaster relief before,” said Symmetra, catching her black hair from whipping around her face and tying it back in a hard-light secured bun, “But attempting it while the disaster is occurring is a... new challenge.”

“I’ve always said I hoped we get less combat-focused missions,” said Mercy, stepping alongside Genji as she watched the wind tear off fronds of palm trees, “I suppose this is one of those ‘Be careful what you wish for’ situations.”

She felt a hand touch her shoulder and looked over to see Genji, staring out into the whirling gray rain smacking into the Florida coastline. 

“Be careful, Angela,” he said softly. His expression was unreadable beneath his visor and faceplate, but she felt his fingers tense slightly on her arm, and she could almost word for word guess his thoughts.

Please don’t fly out in that mess. 

But it wasn’t something he could actually say--they knew their mission. It was all she could do to put her hand over his and say, “You too.”

“Let’s go, everyone!” said Mei, firing off her cryo gun into an icy slope down the side of the building and sliding down it.

“Wow!” a laugh shook Tracer’s voice as she took off after Mei down the slope. Genji and Mercy took off in suit, and Orisa looked nervously over the side of the building.

“Um...” said Orisa. But Symmetra just gave her a sympathetic smile and opened up a teleporter.

“Thank you,” said Orisa, stepping into it.

---

If there was ever a mission that Mei was born for, it was this one. She was erecting ice walls this way and that, stopping floods and mudslides in their paths instantaneously as Orisa stood next to her, directing the bulk of civilians to their evacuation points and keeping their paths shielded from debris with her shield and graviton charges. The rain had soaked everyone through to the skin within seconds, but hardly anyone noticed with all the running around they were doing. Genji and Tracer were darting through the city, Genji using his ninja agility to scale buildings half-torn apart by the hurricane, and tracer darting alongside him with her blinks and acrobatic springs.

“Hulloooo!” Tracer called over the roar of the wind.

“Helloooo!” Genji yelled as well. 

“Hello!” A voice weakly called from one building’s window. 

“Genji!” Tracer said in alarm.

“On it!” said Genji, springing off the roof of a half-submerged car and then grabbing onto the building’s fire escape, scrambling upward. He opened a window, half-stuck with rot from the rain and saw an old woman in a wheelchair in her dark apartment. She gasped and flinched away from him.

“It’s okay,” he said bringing up his hands, “I’m with Overwatch.”

“You’re one of those horrible omnics!” said the old woman, shrinking back in her chair. 

“I’m--I’m not--” Genji started but Tracer zipped through the window in a blue flash.

“Anyone injured?” said Tracer.

“Oh!” the old woman in the chair said, “I know you! Miss Tracer! Thank heavens you’re here! This omnic came in to finish me off!”

“But I’m not--” Genji started but he cut himself off as Tracer put a hand on his arm.

 “Crisis survivor,” Tracer muttered under her breath to Genji, “Better let me take care of this.”

Genji huffed and gave Tracer a nod. “I’ll check the rest of the building,” he said under his breath as Tracer stepped up alongside the old woman.

“Don’t worry, ma’am!” said Tracer, loading the old woman up into a piggyback position from her wheelchair, “We’ll get you to the evac centers right quick!” 

“They’re in the streets!” the old woman wailed.

“Yes, omnics are evacuating too...” said Tracer with a slight sigh in her voice.

The two of them zipped out onto the fire escape in a blue flash as Genji stepped out of the apartment and into he hallway.

“‘Horrible omnics,’“ Genji muttered to himself under his breath, as he paced through the rain-sodden halls of the building, gingerly hopping over bits of broken glass, “Who would be worrying about omnics in the middle of a hurricane?”

He caught something purple out of the corner of his eye and stopped walking, turning his head to see several large purple metal hexagons clawing into the building’s walls. He put a hand over them, hearing them thrumming with power despite this section of the city’s grid being shut off to prevent electrocuting water or gas leaks. He had seen purple power siphons like this littering city years before, in London. His stomach lurched. He brought a hand to the side of his helmet, “Mei?” he said over the comm network, “I think the situation is more complicated than just disaster relief.

-----

Mercy could hear the steel bars of the baseball stadium’s retractable roof rattling with the storm. Terrapin’s local government had done its best to turn the place into a temporary hurricane shelter. Hundreds of cots had been set up across the green, and the culmination of all the human voices inside made Mercy feel like she was in a beehive. and people paced in the stadium seating above, desperate to get away from the mass of panicking bodies below, but knowing they would find no grace from the storm. Already the place was beginning to stink, supplies like diapers and toilet paper were rapidly dwindling, and tensions were already high with everyone holed up in the same building as their omnic neighbors.

“Hold still, this may sting a bit,” said Mercy, her face covered by a surgical mask as she patched up a young man’s leg.

“Why are they even here?” muttered the man, looking at several Omnics chatting with each other.

“They live in this city same as you,” said Mercy, focusing on cleaning the wound.

 “It’s not like they can drown or get infections from the flooding,” he scoffed, “They shouldn’t be taking up space in here...”

A week or so ago, everyone here would have no problem attending a sporting event here with each other, thought Mercy, Fear and loss on this scale...

“That’s as clean as I can get it,” said Mercy, forcing herself back to reality as she looked up at the young man, “The biotics can prevent a myriad of septic conditions, but if that wound was exposed to floodwaters, you’ll still need a round of antibiotics just to be safe. You’ll have to head to the clinic for that.”

“...didn’t you just say you patched up my leg with biotics?” said the man tilting his head.

“Well--yes, but when we talk about these biotics, we’re referring to a molecular-scale robot that can repair cells and tissue, but obviously that’s a mouthful so ‘Biotics’ was largely branding because ‘bio’ means--”

 “Doctor Ziegler?” Mei suddenly buzzed in on Mercy’s comm.

“Excuse me for a second,” said Mercy standing up and putting a hand to the side of her halo, “Yes, Mei?”

“Satya Vaswani has missed our 15 minute check in,” said Orisa over the comm.

“...that’s definitely not like her,” said Mercy, alarmed. She glanced back over her shoulder at the rows of displaced people, some lying down on their cots, oters bickering with their neighbors. The medical staff were so shorthanded as it was, but she had to look after her team as well.

“Is something wrong?” said the man, whose leg she had treated, noting her change in expression, “Did something happen with the storm?”

“It’s fine--I just have to check in with my team. I’ll be back. More help is coming, I promise,” said Mercy taking a few brisk steps away. She tried to look as calm as possible walking towards the exit of the dome. which turned into speedwalking as calmly as possible, which turned into a full on run as soon as she was in the exit corridors of the dome and out of sight, which turned to her spreading her Valkyrie wings and heading out into the storm. She was sideswiped hard by the wind as soon as her feet left the ground, but she braced herself, getting buffeted by that same hard-slapping rain and twigs and leaves and litter caught up in the wind as she ascended. 

“--can--you---signal out there?” Tracer’s voice came in broken over the comm, but Mercy was able to piece together her point.

“My halo’s biofeed should be able to find her!” Mercy yelled over the roar of the wind.

“Be care--” Tracer sounded in her ear but cut out with static. 

“A-gel--” Genji’s voice came in, “--ull sec--”

“Genji, you’re cutting out,” said Mercy, but a ‘Critical’ icon flashed in the corner of her field of vision. She gasped and flew toward it, sometimes getting blown completely off course by a hard wind or narrowly dodging a large piece of debris. Satya was a few blocks away in a flooded section of town, but had constructed hard-light windbreaks, pontoons, and platforms to create pathways through the flooded areas for civilians. Their unnatural whiteness made them easily stand out amidst the haze of the storm and the muck of the flooding. Mei definitely picked well for this mission, thought Mercy, before she spotted Satya and gasped.

Satya was lying on her side on one of her hard-light pontoons, strands of black hair sticking to her face, her photon projector still gripped in one hand and a gash in her side, her legs trailing into the floodwaters. Mercy swiftly glided to her. 

“Satya!” Mercy turned her over on her back and activated the healing on her staff to treat the gash in Symmetra’s side, pulling her out from the water. “Satya?!” 

Satya just coughed and groaned in response and Mercy sighed with relief that she hadn’t completely lost consciousness.

She must have gotten hit by debris, thought Mercy. She huffed and activated the healing on her staff as she scooped Symmetra up, “Stay awake. I’ll get you to safety,” she said, spreading her valkyrie wings.

“F’reeha...” Symmetra murmured deliriously.

“I’m afraid it’s just Angela,” said Mercy with a sigh as she took off.

 Satya’s extra weight at least gave her a bit more inertia--sure she was moving more slowly, but the wind wasn’t knocking her around as much, which was a bit of a relief in itself.

“The omnic...” Symmetra trailed off as she curled into Mercy’s arms.

“An Omnic has a better chance of surviving this than you do in your current state,” said Mercy, continuing to fly back towards the stadium, “Just focus on staying awake.”

“Mm...” Satya awkwardly pressed her prosthetic hand against Mercy’s face.

“Satya, I can’t fly if you’re--” Mercy heard the soft ‘vworp’ of Satya placing a shield around them both.

“...you arrre protected...” Satya mumbled, her arm slumping down to her side again.

“Mercy, were you able to find Symmetra?” Mei spoke over her comm.

“She’s been injured,” said Mercy, “I’ve stabilized her with biotics for now, but she’s in no condition to keep working out here.”

“Doc, we gotta regroup now! The area’s not secure!” said Tracer, cutting in on the line.

“Have you seen any signs of Null Sector?” Genji piped up over the comms. 

“Null sector?” said Mercy when suddenly the water exploded behind her.

She didn’t even have time to look over her shoulder, flight instinct kicked in, she held Satya tight against her and flew as fast as she could. She heard a metallic scream behind her, that warped binary that would make her ears ache during the London uprising, and she looked over her shoulder then. It wasn’t as big as a svyatogor, but then again, it didn’t have to be. It was purple, almost centaur-like, like Orisa, but the metal plates over its back legs were squat at the sides and were angled and jointed like a crab, and the plates along its back were laminar like a lobster. One of its arms was equipped with a massive gun and the other had a pipe-wrench like claw. 8 orange lights blinked out from its head indifferently at Mercy as she flew away as fast as she could. It fired a massive plasma charge at her from its gun arm and Mercy narrowly dodged it. It hit the floodwaters just ahead of her and sent up a foaming burst of brown water. Satya grunted in her arms and shook her head in the spray.

“The omnic!” she cried out in alarm and winced hard, her hand going over her side.

“Try not to move too much,” said Mercy, her eyes stinging from the rain slapping her face.

“Look out!” said Satya and Mercy narrowly dodged another plasma charge. Satya grunted as she brought up her photon projector, firing off a few sparking blue orbs at the monstrous omnic as cover fire. The lobster omnic let out another binary screech and submerged beneath the floodwaters and Mercy suddenly froze in mid air, looking around for the orange lights beneath the murky, churning surface. 

“Doc!” Mercy heard a shout and looked over to the side to see Tracer, now armed with her pulse pistols, darting over the island-like rooftops. The omnic surged back up from beneath the water and slammed down its claw appendage on the roof Tracer was on. Tracer recalled out of the way and fired at the claw, her pulse pistols steaming in the rain. Satya managed to fire off an energy ball from her photon projector that crackled into the side of the Omnic’s head as it focused on Tracer. It screamed as it swiveled its head toward them and Tracer unloaded another pulsefire clip into it from below to try and distract it.

Get out of the way get out of the way, get out of the way-- Mercy thought desperately as she flew and dove, out of the plasma charges the omnic shot at her and Symmetra. Water splashed up and flooded buildings exploded in bursts of wet splintered wood and concrete as Mercy tried to dodge as best she could with Symmetra’s extra weight slowing her down, only to look over her shoulder and see another plasma charge hurtling toward them. Symmetra threw up a photon barrier in the nick of time to absorb the shock, but it shattered and the plasma charge exploded on impact, sending both Mercy and Symmetra spinning through the high winds, out of control. Then suddenly, they both felt the sensation of yanking as they were caught up in a green flash and a strong metal arm grabbed them from the wind.

“Agent Vaswani, you are injured!” said Orisa, holding them both in her arms and putting up a shield in front of the three of them.

“I’m--ngh--aware,” said Symmetra as Mercy kept a steady tether of biotics on her.

“Orisa!” Mercy huffed with relief as Orisa set her on the ground and set Symmetra on her back. Orisa fired off a blaze of green rounds from her fusion driver at the Omnic, causing it to screech and submerge once more, leaving them in the hammering rain.

“We came as quick as we could!” said Mei, and Mercy looked behind her to see bridges of ice made between the roofs of flooded buildings. 

“It’s some new amphibious mech,” said Tracer, darting back to them in a blue flash and looking out over the edge, “Like the Gwishin!”

“Null sector must be hoping to use the hurricane to establish a foothold here,” said Mei, furrowing her brow.

“The mission’s gone from relief to combat,” said Mercy. 

“The priority remains the same! We must protect the civilians!” said Orisa. Mercy gave a worried look back at the stadium. They were a decent ways away, but this omnic could move faster underwater. An alarmed thought flashed in her mind.

“Where’s Genji!?” said Mercy, suddenly, looking for him in her biofeed.

“His comm has been cutting out,” said Mei. 

“Well the smart thing for him to do would be informing the local authorities that Null Sector’s here so they can speed up evacuation on the stadium, then heading back to the dropship and hailing Winston for backu--” Tracer started but there was another binary screech as the omnic rose out of the water again.

“Brace yourselves!” said Orisa as the omnic roared in binary.

Mercy raised her blaster but then there was a great green flash across the omnic’s middle. Mercy watched as Genji somersaulted through the air and landed lightly on another rooftop, his feet sliding slightly in the powerful winds and on the wet-saturated surface. 

“...or he could be doing the Genji thing and being wherever the fighting is,” said Tracer with a shrug.

“Is everyone all right?!” Genji called to them.

“We’re fine!” Tracer called back to him.

“Mostly...” said Symmetra, noting the bloodstain on her dress. The omnic fired a plasma charge at him and he dodged out of the way of one and deflected the other with a flash of his blade. The deflected plasma charge burst into the Omnic’s shoulder and it screeched with a fury before smashing the building roof he was on. Genji bounded across Mei’s ice bridges, tossing shuriken at it all the while to keep its attention on him. From behind Orisa’s shield, Mercy, Symmetra, Tracer, and Orisa hit the Omnic with all the firepower they could as Mei focused on freezing the floodwaters around the omnic to keep it from submerging again. The omnic screeched and with a hard swipe of its lobster-like tail sent the five of them flying in a spray of water, ice, and broken cement. 

“Angela!” in the roar of wind and rumble of ice and cement and water, Mercy could hear Genji calling her name.

Symmetra held onto Orisa tight and with a hard sweep of her arm materialized a massive hard-light platform over the flood waters that they all tumbled onto with pained grunts.

“Is everyone--” Mei started.

“Move, move, MOVE!” shouted Tracer as the omnic smashed its massive claw down towards them. They only barely made it onto another rooftop when the hard-light platform was smashed behind them and the Omnic submerged again. With the chunks of ice in the water, the team could now make out the rough shape of the omnic as it swam through the floodwaters. Mercy’s eyes flicked up from the flooded street to the direction it was swimming in.

“It’s headed for the stadium!” she blurted out.

“So we get ahead of it!” said Tracer, darting after it and shooting at it, forcing it above the surface to return fire at her, “Keep its attention on us!”

“Satya,” Mei turned to Symmetra, “How far ahead of it can you get me?”

Symmetra, still slumped across Orisa, opened up a teleporter, “Hopefully far enough.”

“Doctor Ziegler! Genji! I need you two and Tracer to distract it!” shouted Mei, “Satya and Orisa, you’re with me!”

Mercy pushed up from the ground and flew over to Genji, he recognized her flightpath almost instantly and lifted an arm. She snatched him off the roof and they were both hit with hard winds and rain as they flew towards the omnic.

“How close can you get us?” said Genji, throwing shuriken at the omnic.

“I can’t dodge as easily with these winds and your extra weight,” said Mercy.

Genji watched as Tracer raced next to the Omnic, pulling a pulse bomb out of the interior of her jacket, then looked ahead to Mei throwing out snowball into the flooded path of the Omnic as Symmetra tossed out several turrets and Orisa laid down a new barrier, “You only need a few seconds.”

Mercy followed his line of sight and gave him a nod. She swept him in close and he drew Ryū Ichimonji from his back, slashing across the lobster plating of the Omnic. The Omnic turned around and roared at them, only to get a face-full of caduceus blaster rounds and shuriken, before it suddenly got caught by Orisa’s graviton charge, stumbled and fell into a mess of muddy, icy sludge stirred up by Mei and snowball. 

“Try swimming in that!” said Mei, further freezing it in place with her cryo-gun.

Blue beams from Symmetra’s turrets locked it into place and Tracer raced up the length of its body and stuck a pulse bomb on the side of its head before recalling away. The omnic’s screech was cut short as the pulse bomb went off. A shock rippled through the omnic’s form with the force of the bomb until the mass off metal was finally still, sliding down Mei’s hill of ice and sludge blocking the street, slowly sinking back into the water flooding the streets of the city for a final time.

Mercy let herself and Genji drift back down to the roof the others were convening on. The six of them looked out over the edge into the murky flood waters, all of them with their weapons at the ready for a few tense, silent seconds, the rain beating down on all of them. They watched as the orange lights of the Null Sector omnic’s head blinked out into darkness, and then all of them collectively exhaled, completely exhausted.

“We’ll...” Mei took off her glasses to try and wipe the rain off of them, “We’ll need to get in contact with Winston. Ask for backup.”

“Overwatch is still illegal,” said Symmetra, sliding down off Orisa’s back but still leaning on her for support, “And there’s no doubt that fight drew the attention of the authorities. If we stay here, no matter how well-intentioned we are, we risk arrest.”

“We can’t just leave---” Mei started when suddenly that purple pipe-wrench looking claw jutted out of the water and seized for her.

“Look out!” Mercy dropped her staff and shoved Mei out of the way--there was a near nanosecond where it seemed as if Mercy had successfully tackled Mei away from the claw, but then the claw clamped down on her valkyrie wings and yanked her off the roof, down into the murky waters below.

“Doc!” Tracer called out but Genji had already jumped off the roof, diving into the floodwaters after her.

The yank of the Omnic’s claw and the shock of the cold of the water had knocked the wind out of Mercy, and all the murk of the floodwater’s filth and the darkness of the hurricane-veiled sky left her virtually blind down there. She opened her eyes, stinging with salt and she-didn’t-want-to-think-about-what-else, and tried flailing for the harness connecting the valkyrie wings to her back. No good, the wings were crushed, not responding to the release mechanism. She twisted in the water and turned to find herself facing those same indifferent orange eye-lights, now flickering in the murky darkness. Her lungs burning, she drew her Caduceus blaster from her hip and fired off the whole thin right into the omnic’s face, the shots from her blaster lighting up the murk with a weak over and over and over again until she was clicking the trigger uselessly. The orange lights finally flickered into darkness and panic suddenly overtook Mercy as she tried to swim upward, only to realize the omnic had finally shut down with its claw still clamped on her wings.

 In the dark of the water she made out a vague glowing green ‘V’ shape with three green dots bordering it. Genji was swimming down towards her, practically flailing to keep from being pushed around by the current. Her vision was dimming at the edges. She reached a hand up as the dragon blazed around Genji, lighting up the water around them. He took ahold of her wrist as he brought the sword down behind her. She felt herself come loose from the omnic’s claw and he pulled her against him.. She kicked her feet as he swam up towards the surface, not sure if she was swimming or if she was so weak he was doing all the work, but then there was a green flash and a hard yanking feeling and both of them were hauled out of the water by one of Orisa’s gravitons and they rolled onto the roof. Mercy was coughing and sputtering, and Genji quickly pressed at the catches of his helmet and pulled off his faceplate, sending water pouring out as he coughed and spat and coughed some more.

“Please tell me that thing’s dead,” said Tracer, looking out over the roof as Mercy and Genji panted.

“It’s dead,” said Genji, feeling the rain cold on his scars as Mercy looked over her shoulder to see two sharp stubs where her valkyrie wings once were. 

“...I’m sorry,” said Genji, looking at Mercy. She broke her sight away from the stubs of her wings.

“It’s just a suit,” she said, putting a hand on the side of his face, “I’ll be fine. Thank you, Genji.”

-----

Mercy and Genji both had orange blankets around their shoulders in the dropship as Mei and Tracer discussed the mission’s next steps with Winston over Vid-com. They were still on the roof of the parking garage, but the whole ship was shaking with the force of the wind. Symmetra rested her eyes in a biotic field in the opposite corner and Orisa was attempting to do maintenance on her own overclocked fusion driver.

“What are you thinking about?” said Genji as Mercy watched the droplets running into each other on the dropship’s windshield.

“How badly I want a shower after getting yanked into water that definitely has untreated sewage,” said Mercy, glancing over at him.

Genji chuckled wearily.

“What about you?” said Mercy.

“Well now I’m thinking about that shower,” said Genji, before readjusting his blanket on his shoulders, “But... I don’t know. I suppose I’m feeling like an idiot for hesitating.”

“Hesitating?” said Mercy.

“Back in the water. It--it was only for a second,” said Genji.

“I didn’t even notice,” said Mercy.

“I know cutting off the wings was the obvious thing to do, and they were crushed anyway, but some stupid part of me went ‘Don’t hurt her.’ Even though obviously, they’re... not you.”

“Fear does very interesting things to logic,” said Mercy with a shrug, “If I recall correctly, you had no problem ripping off your prosthetic arm on that one Blackwatch mission back in the old days.” 

“Well I didn’t exactly have a healthy relationship to my body back then,” said Genji, knocking his shoulder against hers slightly, “But... thankfully now I have a bit more care for both the mechanical and organic parts of me...and, apparently, you too.”

“Because obviously I always had wings, they’re just cyborg wings,” said Mercy with a smirk.

“Obviously,” said Genji with a slight smile. The dropship rattled again with the storm and Mercy’s shoulders tensed slightly.

“And now I’m feeling horrible that we’re probably heading back to the watchpoint,” said Mercy, tightening her blanket around herself.

“Well between the number that omnic did on us and the authorities coming... there’s only so much we can do,” said Genji, “We’ll regroup. Come back with more resources, more help.”

“I know, just... back in the old days with all of Overwatch’s resources, I could fly out of a place with faith that... that I’m leaving it better than I found it,” said Mercy.

“I would say stopping a Null Sector omnic from killing hundreds of storm-displaced people is leaving a place better than we found it,” said Genji.

“I wish it looked like that,” said Mercy, watching the palm trees flail in the wind and rain out the dropship window.

“We made a difference,” said Genji, “You made a difference. I know with everything going on in the world, it always seems so overwhelming, but every little bit of good you put out there counts for something.”

“Is that something Zenyatta told you?” said Mercy. 

“No I just... always thought that about you,” said Genji with a slight shrug.

Mercy leaned her head on his shoulder, “If we hadn’t both been dropped into sewer-tainted water, I would kiss you right now”

Genji leaned his cheek on her head. “This is fine, too,” he said as the ship shook in the wind.

[sebeth]

Earth’s Mightiest Heroes: Breakout

Warning, Spoilers Ahead…

 Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Episodes 1 &2: Breakout.

 Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes is one of my favorite hero cartoons. It ranks up there with Young Justice, Justice League Unlimited, and Batman: Brave and the Bold.  I love all these series for the same reason: the creators realize the DC and Marvel Universe have thousands of characters and all should be featured!

We open with Iron Man interrupting a weapons exchange between A.I.M. and Lucia Von Bardas.

Lucia Von Bardas is a rather obscure character. She is the Prime Minister of Latveria and appeared in the “Secret War” mini-series by Brian Michael Bendis and Gabrielle Del’Otto.

Is the weapons deal taking place in Latveria? If so, Tony legally can’t do anything about it.

Tony’s “Unfortunately some of it has my name on it” comment indicates he’s started his “Armor Wars” campaign against villains stealing his tech.  It would also explain why Tony’s invading Latveria to reclaim/neutralize his tech. If you haven’t read the classic “Armor Wars” storyline from the 1980s, you should give it a shot. Great storyline where Tony goes to extremes to take back his technology.

I love how unimpressed Lucia is with Tony’s posturing – she’s all “whatever”! Let’s be real, Lucia’s boss is Doctor Doom – she’s heard actual scary threats and seen said threats executed. Tony just doesn’t measure up in the intimidation factor,

We switch to the “Cube” where Doctor Samson patrols the corridors of a prison.  We get glimpses of the Wrecker, Zzzax, and the Absorbing Man.

Doctor Samson interviews an imprisoned Bruce Banner and notes that there hasn’t been a “Hulk incident” in 36 hours.

Samson informs us the Cube is the “most advanced gamma radiation research facility” on the planet. Banner warns the Cube is a “gamma bomb” waiting to happen.

Why are the Wrecker, the Absorbing Man and Zzzax contained in the Cube if its purpose is gamma radiation research? The first two villains are the result of Asgardian magic and Zzzax was created by a terrorist act that didn’t involve gamma radiation.

Balder teleports to Thor in New York City.  Odin has entered the Odinsleep and would like Thor to supervise Asgard while he’s comatose. Thor reacts with as much enthusiasm as teenager told to mow the front lawn.

Thor ditches Balder to first save and then flirt with Jane Foster who is a paramedic in this universe.

Iron Man lands at the Vault and deposits the A.I.M. henchmen with SHIELD agent Jimmy Woo.

The Vault was located in Colorado in the comic book verse and based on the mountains I assume its still located in Colorado in the cartoon verse.

Jimmy Woo is most famous for being a member of the Agents of Atlas team.

Jimmy asks Tony to look over the Vault’s security because there was an “incident last week”. Tony tells Jimmy to schedule an appointment with Pepper because “I’m sure whatever it is can wait”. Not so much, Tony, not so much.

Hank Pym is the creator, and apparently the therapist, of the “Big House”. A shrunken prison located in the SHIELD Helicarrier. Ultron robots act as security guards.

Mad Thinker taunts Pym that “something is about to happen” but refuses to divulge details.

SHIELD agent Maria Hill asks the Wasp if she and Pym have considered Fury’s offer to become agents of SHIELD. Janet is for the idea but Hank is against it. The duo walks past Black Widow in the hall. Janet asks who the Widow is but is told “she’s classified”.

Power fluctuations occur throughout the multiple prisons and the Helicarrier. We see Hawkeye imprisoned in a cell in the Vault.

The Vault is the first prison to lose complete power. Inmates released from the cells include the Blizzard and a monocle man that I’m assuming is Baron Von Strucker.

The Cube goes down next. Zzzax, the Leader, the Wrecker, and Absorbing Man are freed.

The Big House is the third to go down, causing it to expand to its regular size and decimate the Helicarrier. The Big House now has numerous releases: Mad Thinker, Mandrill, MODOK, Griffin, Constrictor, Red Ghost & the Super Apes, Whirlwind, and the Grey Gargoyle.

The Cube’s Power Loss causes a release of Gamma radiation which envelopes Doctor Samson.

SHIELD agent Clay Quartermain informs Nick Fury that the Vault and the Cube’s systems have gone offline and no one is responding in the Big House: “Something has gone seriously wrong!”

The Helicarrier suffers the worst of it because SHIELD has to deal with escaping prisoners while in the process of crashing.

Pepper contacts Tony to inform him of the Helicarrier explosion while Jarvis tells him the Vault’s systems have gone offline. Tony heads to the Vault since he’s closer to it.

Thor and Jane are having drinks. Jane tells Thor to be a grown-up and handle his Asgardian responsibilities – Earth will be fine. Cue Helicarrier explosion. Thor heads off to investigate.

Banner is trapped under rubble. Doctor Samson stumbles toward him – with green hair. Samson attempts to lift the rubble and transforms into a super-human physique.

I do prefer this origin for Doctor Samson instead of the comic book verse where an alleged highly intelligent man decides to randomly inject himself with gamma radiation.

Vector of the U-Foes opens the weapons storage area of the Vault, allowing a female Whiplash and Chemistro.

Hawkeye knocks out Chemistro.

Hank is not having a good time as he’s in the midst of a huge multiple super-villain brawl. Cobra is the latest villain to arrive at the party. The Ultron robots attempt to stop Red Ghost but are stopped by the Super Apes. Fortunately for Hank, Jan arrives in time to save the day.

Hawkeye aims at Whiplash only for Iron Man to storm in through the ceiling. Tony recognizes Whiplash but refers to Clint as “arrow guy”.

Hawkeye is clearly in the early part of his career – the misunderstood good guy who was imprisoned – but he clearly never fought Iron Man as Tony doesn’t recognize him.

Clint attempts to say “Wait, I’m a good guy” but is interrupted by a repulsor blast. If Clint’s identifying himself as a “good guy” why was he imprisoned? A misunderstanding – like in the comics – Natasha’s a SHIELD agent but did another woman play Clint for a fool? Or is Clint undercover for SHIELD?

Tony battles Whiplash and Blizzard, two of his regular rogues’ gallery, and Vector, who is normally a Hulk enemy. Crimson Dynamo decides now is the perfect time to join the Iron Man beatdown party.

Tony orders an evacuation of the Vault – all SHIELD agents are to leave immediately.

Nick Fury isn’t concerned with the chaos and escapees on the Helicarrier – his only priority is the Raft – the “fourth prison”.

As seen in the comic book verse, the cartoon verse, and Captain America: Civil War, the Raft is a prison off the coast of New York City. The cells are on the ocean floor.

The mass breakout of the Raft caused the creation of Bendis’s New Avengers and was clearly one of the inspirations of these episodes.

We view the Raft and it too is losing power. Baron Zemo and the Purple Man have been released along with a furry clawed creature that we only receive a glimpse of so I can’t identify. Marvel has a lot of clawed, furry creatures.

We also see an unconscious man regaining consciousness. This will be Graviton, an extremely powerful but ultimately boring villain. In the New Avengers arc, Count Nefaria was the big bad released from the Raft.

Zzzax electrocutes Banner which triggers the transformation into the Hulk.

The Leader is in the control room and observes the mass shutdowns of the superhuman prisons. He orders the Absorbing Man and the Abomination to deal with the Hulk.

Hawkeye aids Iron Man in his battle against his rogues’ gallery. Iron Man initiates a self-destruct sequence of the Vault. An effective if brutal way to deal with the villains.

Hulk, the Absorbing Man, and the Abomination battle across the Cube. Hulk grabs Sampson and leaps from the Cube. The Leader prevents Absorbing Man and the Abomination from pursuing the Hulk as “we have work to do”.

The location of the Cube isn’t established but based on the scenery I would say it’s in New Mexico – the traditional stomping grounds of the Hulk.

Fury leaves Maria as the acting director of SHIELD while he takes a team to the Raft. Graviton is fully awake and launches the Raft into the sky.

The second episode begins with a flashback from ten years ago. Nick Fury hires Franklin Hall, a gravity researcher/physicist to continue Abraham Erskine’s work on the Super Soldier project.

I’m not a scientist but isn’t a physicist the wrong type of specialist to continue Erskine’s work?

Hall’s work causes an explosion that bombards him with energy. Hall regains consciousness and realizes he can control gravity. Fury responds by gassing him into unconsciousness and keeping him comatose for the next decade.

Hall was never going to be a nice man but I don’t think you should keep an individual comatose for a decade before he’s even broken a law.

The newly awoken Hall asks Zemo how long he’s been at the Raft and Zemo replies “longer than me and I have been here for six years.”

Hall is rightfully pissed and yanks the Raft into the air.

Graviton tortures Fury but is interrupted by a newly arrived Thor. Wasp rescues Fury while Thor and Graviton battle. The distraction causes Graviton to release the Raft and it falls into the ocean.  It’s been a bad day for the prisoners of the Raft and the Vault.

Iron Man requests a new suit of armor from his Chicago armory. Tony’s stuck chilling in a cornfield (Iowa, Kansas?) until it arrives.

Fury declares an “Omega-level emergency” which means that “every SHIELD agent, every Hulkbuster unit, and the entire United States armed forces” is under his direct control.

Hank & Jan demand information from Fury. Hank notes no one has heard from Hall “ever since he joined SHIELD”.

The Hulk drops Samson off at the Vital Diner, ordering chicken soup and requesting the waitress take care of Samson.

Bruce urges the Hulk to head to New York and aid Thor. Hulk agrees if he is allowed to remain the Hulk and not be “Banner”.

Janet throws herself into the fight and Hank follows after quizzing Fury for info.

Wasp gives Graviton hell. Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ Janet is my favorite Janet. Sassy, headstrong, big heart, great costume. Also, my favorite Hank Pym.  Smart, conflicted, reluctant hero and has never hit Jan.

Iron Man arrives and joins the fight.

Graviton tears New York City apart, and sends Iron Man into space.

Iron Man returns from space and unleashes the repulsor blast/uni-beam to end all blasts.

Hulk arrives in time to debate Graviton’s claim that he “is the strongest one there is”.

Thor’s comment after the Hulk’s arrival: “I didn’t realize there were ogres on Midgard”.

The united team battle and defeat Graviton.

SHIELD attempts to arrest the Hulk but is stopped by the rest of the Avengers.

Fury notes 74 super-villains have escaped the various prisons. If we assume all the villains shown, minus Graviton, have escaped that would be a total of 23. If you include the Super-Apes (who are more of mindless minions than actual villains) and assume the rest of the U-Foes and the Wrecking Crew were imprisoned with their leaders, it leaves us with a count of 32.  I’m not counting the AIM henchmen Tony dropped off at the Vault because I don’t think they were imprisoned long enough to be processed in the system.  We have 42 unseen villains that escaped but only 40 if you count Hawkeye and the Hulk among the escapees.

Fury asks the assembled heroes to become SHIELD agents but Hank refuses on behalf of the entire group. Hank rightfully points out Fury’s actions caused the entire Graviton situation.

Iron Man agrees the heroes should become a team but not under SHIELD’s supervision.

SHIELD discovers Graviton regained consciousness after all the prisons failed leading to the final question: “If he wasn’t responsible, who was?”

Great debut episode. I loved the fact that even though Captain America was in the opening credits, we didn’t see him at all in the opening two-parter. Very true to the comics as Cap wasn’t a founder member in the series and didn’t appear until issue #4.

I also enjoyed the various prisons and their different purposes.

The Vault was primarily but not exclusively for tech-based villains (Crimson Dynamo, Chemistro, Whiplash, Blizzard, AIM, etc).

The Cube is Gamma-radiation/other mysterious energy-based villains (Leader, Abomination, Zzzax, Absorbing Man, Wrecker, etc).

The Raft is “Oh Shit” level villains either due to powers (Graviton, Purple Man) or influence (Baron Zemo).

The Big House is the least-clearly defined in purpose but mostly contained enemies of Captain America and the Fantastic Four.

Characters appearing and/or mentioned:

1.       Iron Man (Tony Stark)

2.       Lucia Von Bardas

3.       Doctor Doom

4.       A.I.M.

5.       Jarvis (A.I)

6.       Pepper Potts

7.       Wrecker

8.       Zzzax

9.       Absorbing Man

10.   Doctor Samson

11.   Hulk (Bruce Banner)

12.   S.H.I.E.L.D.

13.   General “Thunderbolt” Ross

14.   Leader

15.   Abomination

16.   Thor

17.   Balder the Brave

18.   Odin

19.   Jane Foster

20.   Jimmy Woo

21.   Ant-Man (Hank Pym)

22.   Ultron

23.   Mad Thinker

24.   Maria Hill

25.   Wasp (Janet Van Dyne)

26.   Nick Fury

27.   Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff)

28.   Hawkeye (Clint Barton)

29.   Blizzard

30.   Baron Von Strucker

31.   Mandrill

32.   MODOK

33.   Griffin

34.   Red Ghost & the Super Apes

35.   Whirlwind

36.   Grey Gargoyle

37.   Constrictor

38.   Clay Quartermain

39.   Vector

40.   U-Foes

41.   Whiplash

42.   Chemistro

43.   Cobra

44.   Crimson Dynamo

45.   Baron Zemo

46.   Purple Man

47.   Graviton