#Quantum Nexus

[litrpgburrito]

5 Hidden LitRPG Gems: Manga Edition

Here’s a platter of five lesser-known manga titles within the LitRPG genre. Give them a taste!

1. “The Legendary Gamer”

Synopsis: In a world where gaming and reality intertwine, our protagonist, Alex, discovers an ancient console that transports him into the virtual realm of “Elysium.” There, he gains unique abilities, levels up, and faces formidable foes. But as he delves deeper, he uncovers a hidden conspiracy that threatens both worlds.

2. “Chronicles of the Code Mage”

Synopsis: In a cyberpunk dystopia, hackers are the new mages. Meet Kira, a brilliant coder who stumbles upon a forbidden code that grants her magical powers within the digital realm. As she navigates corporate espionage, rival hackers, and ancient secrets, she must balance her dual existence as a code mage.

3. “Realm Reboot”

Synopsis: When a mysterious glitch causes the popular MMORPG “Nexa Online” to merge with reality, players find themselves trapped in a fantasy world. Our protagonist, Jake, must unravel the game’s secrets, level up, and confront powerful NPCs—all while searching for a way back home.

4. “Echoes of the Forgotten”

Synopsis: In a post-apocalyptic world, humanity survives within massive underground cities. The only escape from their bleak existence is the immersive VRMMORPG “Echoes of Eternity.” Our hero, Lyla, embarks on a quest to uncover the game’s hidden lore, battling monsters and unearthing forgotten memories.

5. “Quantum Nexus”

Synopsis: When physics prodigy Mia discovers a mysterious quantum device, she gains the ability to manipulate reality itself. As she explores alternate dimensions, she encounters NPCs with their own consciousness. Mia must balance her scientific curiosity with the consequences of her actions across parallel worlds.

Support your LitRPG Burrito and our goal to go full time by sporting your new Cyberpunk Llama shirt! https://bit.ly/3zcBlTb

[migardan]

Of Genious and Fools

Of Genius and Fools

Doctor Theobard Alconbury, from the Institute of Impossible Sciences, invented the Quantum Nexus. A device designed to alter probabilities, shift events, and rewrite destiny.

Some considered Alconbury a madman, while others ridiculed him. But he never stopped believing in his theories. In his darkest days, he remembers the visionaries who faced similar scorn. Those who were once dismissed as fools are now recognized as geniuses. This thought gave him hope, it let him persevere despite the disbelief of others. Now, after a lifetime of work, he just needed to press a button to prove his wisdom.

Alconbury stood before the big control panel in his underground lab. His peers watched with visible scorn. Nervously, he ran his hand through his messy gray hair. He took a deep breath and activated the Quantum Nexus. His eyes gleamed with excitement. The device glowed, casting eerie shadows on the walls. Alconbury's heart raced, vindication seemed nearby. But, instead of letting him hack reality, the Nexus flooded the room. Alconbury disintegrated and vanished. In that final moment, he saw that those who see themselves as geniuses are often fools.

[draptorronin]

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: post- and transhumanism

AKA: cyborgs, uploaded minds, and humans otherwise altered by technology.

I have previously written a rec list for books featuring robots and artificial intelligences, but ended up excluding various titles for not quite fitting the theme. Hence, this list, which focuses more on the step from human into something else, commonly with themes of what it means to be human.

Previous book rec posts:

Really cool fantasy worldbuilding, really cool sci-fi worldbuilding, dark sapphic romances, mermaid books, vampire books, portal fantasies, robots and artificial intelligences

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with an * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi*

Place this one in the category of ‘accept that you’re gonna be confused as hell and just let the world wash over you’. The singularity has come and gone and humans can now easily upload, download and copy themselves into new bodies, not all of them human and not always willingly. Consciousnesses and time has become something close to currency. Follows a murder mystery on Mars.

The Scorpion Rules (Prisoners of Peace duology) by Erin Bow*

Young Adult. Featuring a dystopian future in which an AI forcibly keeps world peace by holding the children of world leaders hostage. If anyone attempts to start a war, their child will be executed. Greta is one of these children, kept in a school with others like her. But things start to change one day when a new, less obedient hostage arrives. A unique, slowburn take on the YA dystopian craze, also featuring a bisexual love triangle.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox (Jenna Fox Chronicles) by Mary E. Pearson

Young Adult set in a near future. Jenna wakes from a year long coma after an accident, and something is wrong. Is this really her life? Are her memories her own? Exactly what happened a year ago, and what did her parents do to get her back?

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky*

Millenia and generation spanning scifi. After the collapse of an empire, a planet once part of a project to uplift other species to sentience is left to develop on its own, resulting not in the intelligent monkeys once intended but in sentient giant spiders. Millenia later, what remains of humanity arrives looking for a new home, only to be met by the artificial remains of the ancient woman who once led the uplift project - and she is not willing to let them on her planet.

War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi*

In an enviromentally fraught future, the Nigerian civil war has flared back up, utilizing cybernetics and mechs to enhance its soldiers. Two sisters, by bond if not by blood, are separated and end up on differing sides of the struggle. Brutal and dark, with themes of dehumanization of soldiers through cybernetics that turn them into weapons, and the effect and trauma this has on them.

The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey

1969 classic. Features a future in which children born too weak to survive are put into and raised in mechanical bodies. Helva, one of these children, grows up to be put in charge of her own space ship, from which she works to fulfill various missions out in space, missions which she quickly comes to learn are much more dangerous than she could've imagined.

Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles) Marissa Meyer*

Young Adult fairy tale retelling. Cinder, a cyborg with a mysterious past she can't remember, lives with her stepmother and two stepsisters in New Beijing as a deadly plague ravages the world and a race of Lunar people threaten war against the entire planet. As Cinder becomes entwined with the young prince Kai, she is pulled more and more into dangerous politics that see her as less than human due to her cybernetics, yet need her to save them.

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds

Six million years in the future, humanity has spread across the entire Milky Way galaxy. Purslane and Campion are both clones of the same woman, sent into the galaxy millions of years ago to explore along with almost a thousand clones like them. Every 200 000 years they all meet to compare memories and experiences. But this time Purslane and Campion arrive late - and discover that a secret millions of years in the making has lead to an extinction level attack against their kind. Now they must find out the truth before their line is completely wiped out. Absolutely wild world-building, featuring various kinds of posthumans (among which the clones are, shockingly, the most similar to people of our time).

Nexus (Nexus trilogy) by Ramez Naam

In a near future, a nano-drug is developed that can link human minds together, having the potential to change humanity forever. As different factions fight over it - some wanting to control it, other to eradicate it, and many to exploit it - a scientist who's caught improving the drug is thrust into a world of danger and international espionage.

Skinned (Cold Awakening trilogy) by Robin Wasserman

Young Adult. Rich girl Lia Kahn had the perfect life - until she died and was brought back by having her memories downloaded into a mechanical body. Despite having her life back, Lia also finds her life changed, as people fear her and treat her differently. Worse; she herself isn't sure if she's still really Lia, or whether she's even a person at all anymore.

Blindsight (Firefall duology)by Peter Watts*

Vampires and aliens and questions of the nature of consciousnesses, oh my. A ship is sent to investigate the sudden appearance of an alien vessel at the edge of the solar system, but the crew, a group of various level of transhumanism, isn't prepared for the horrors awaiting them. No, seriously, this book will fuck you up, highly recommend if you’re okay with a lot of techno babble and existential horror.

Mortal Enginges (Mortal Engines quartet) by Philip Reeve*

Young Adult. On a barely survivable Earth humanity has taken to living on great wandering cities, hunting each other across the plains for resources. Tom lives in London, but when he intervenes to stop a murder, he falls off the city alongside a strange and hostile girl on the hunt for revenge. Together they set out to catch up to the city, but are chased by a murderous machine like being set on stopping them. Trans/posthumanism isn't the main theme of the book, but it continues to grow in importance throughout the series.

Bonus AKA I haven't read these yet but they seem really cool

Meru by S.B. Divya

A human and a posthuman, called an alloy, venture together into space to explore a newly discovered, earth-like planet, testing the future of the relationship between their peoples on the way.

WE by John Dickinson

Humanity has become a hive mind, constantly connected. When Paul is sent on a one-way mission to a frozen moon, he must disconnect from the rest of humanity, for the first time seeing what it has truly become.

Accelerando by Charles Stross

In a time in which the artificial and the posthuman is more and more outpacing the human, something strange enters the solar system and starts dismantling its planets.

Honorary mentions AKA these didn't really work for me but maybe you guys will like them: We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

[iamthescalesofjustice]

anyway since that thedas parent poll and since deciding yet again to kill that within which cringes i did come up with an oc that is felix's younger sibling.

assholes in tevinter high society are like 'weird that he let the basically-soporati one live out of sentiment, but surely he will just make the younger one his heir. unconventional, but so long as the next magister alexius is a real mage it can be done.' but there is exactly zero intent by any of the alexi for this, bc he very much does not have the temperament for it. week one he would be struggling immensely to restrain himself from responding to some veiled threat by fireballing the offender and hopping down on the magisterium floor to punch them for good measure, and it would only go downhill from there.

[dreamy-conceit]

When You Touch This Dimension, God Becomes Your Slave

— online spirituality material

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Coprophagic AI crisis

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TORONTO on Mar 22, then with LAURA POITRAS in NYC on Mar 24, then Anaheim, and more!

A key requirement for being a science fiction writer without losing your mind is the ability to distinguish between science fiction (futuristic thought experiments) and predictions. SF writers who lack this trait come to fancy themselves fortune-tellers who SEE! THE! FUTURE!

The thing is, sf writers cheat. We palm cards in order to set up pulp adventure stories that let us indulge our thought experiments. These palmed cards – say, faster-than-light drives or time-machines – are narrative devices, not scientifically grounded proposals.

Historically, the fact that some people – both writers and readers – couldn't tell the difference wasn't all that important, because people who fell prey to the sf-as-prophecy delusion didn't have the power to re-orient our society around their mistaken beliefs. But with the rise and rise of sf-obsessed tech billionaires who keep trying to invent the torment nexus, sf writers are starting to be more vocal about distinguishing between our made-up funny stories and predictions (AKA "cyberpunk is a warning, not a suggestion"):

https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/11/dont-create-the-torment-nexus.html

In that spirit, I'd like to point to how one of sf's most frequently palmed cards has become a commonplace of the AI crowd. That sleight of hand is: "add enough compute and the computer will wake up." This is a shopworn cliche of sf, the idea that once a computer matches the human brain for "complexity" or "power" (or some other simple-seeming but profoundly nebulous metric), the computer will become conscious. Think of "Mike" in Heinlein's *The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress#Plot

For people inflating the current AI hype bubble, this idea that making the AI "more powerful" will correct its defects is key. Whenever an AI "hallucinates" in a way that seems to disqualify it from the high-value applications that justify the torrent of investment in the field, boosters say, "Sure, the AI isn't good enough…yet. But once we shovel an order of magnitude more training data into the hopper, we'll solve that, because (as everyone knows) making the computer 'more powerful' solves the AI problem":

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

As the lawyers say, this "cites facts not in evidence." But let's stipulate that it's true for a moment. If all we need to make the AI better is more training data, is that something we can count on? Consider the problem of "botshit," Andre Spicer and co's very useful coinage describing "inaccurate or fabricated content" shat out at scale by AIs:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4678265

"Botshit" was coined last December, but the internet is already drowning in it. Desperate people, confronted with an economy modeled on a high-speed game of musical chairs in which the opportunities for a decent livelihood grow ever scarcer, are being scammed into generating mountains of botshit in the hopes of securing the elusive "passive income":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

Botshit can be produced at a scale and velocity that beggars the imagination. Consider that Amazon has had to cap the number of self-published "books" an author can submit to a mere three books per day:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/20/amazon-restricts-authors-from-self-publishing-more-than-three-books-a-day-after-ai-concerns

As the web becomes an anaerobic lagoon for botshit, the quantum of human-generated "content" in any internet core sample is dwindling to homeopathic levels. Even sources considered to be nominally high-quality, from Cnet articles to legal briefs, are contaminated with botshit:

https://theconversation.com/ai-is-creating-fake-legal-cases-and-making-its-way-into-real-courtrooms-with-disastrous-results-225080

Ironically, AI companies are setting themselves up for this problem. Google and Microsoft's full-court press for "AI powered search" imagines a future for the web in which search-engines stop returning links to web-pages, and instead summarize their content. The question is, why the fuck would anyone write the web if the only "person" who can find what they write is an AI's crawler, which ingests the writing for its own training, but has no interest in steering readers to see what you've written? If AI search ever becomes a thing, the open web will become an AI CAFO and search crawlers will increasingly end up imbibing the contents of its manure lagoon.

This problem has been a long time coming. Just over a year ago, Jathan Sadowski coined the term "Habsburg AI" to describe a model trained on the output of another model:

https://twitter.com/jathansadowski/status/1625245803211272194

There's a certain intuitive case for this being a bad idea, akin to feeding cows a slurry made of the diseased brains of other cows:

https://www.cdc.gov/prions/bse/index.html

But "The Curse of Recursion: Training on Generated Data Makes Models Forget," a recent paper, goes beyond the ick factor of AI that is fed on botshit and delves into the mathematical consequences of AI coprophagia:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.17493

Co-author Ross Anderson summarizes the finding neatly: "using model-generated content in training causes irreversible defects":

https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2023/06/06/will-gpt-models-choke-on-their-own-exhaust/

Which is all to say: even if you accept the mystical proposition that more training data "solves" the AI problems that constitute total unsuitability for high-value applications that justify the trillions in valuation analysts are touting, that training data is going to be ever-more elusive.

What's more, while the proposition that "more training data will linearly improve the quality of AI predictions" is a mere article of faith, "training an AI on the output of another AI makes it exponentially worse" is a matter of fact.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/14/14/inhuman-centipede#enshittibottification

Image: Plamenart (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Double_Mobius_Strip.JPG

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[foone]

So I've been reading up on the Dimensional Nexus Encyclopedia, and found some wild stuff in there I gotta infodump about.

First of all, did you know the name is wrong? It's not interdimensional at all! We're moving in space, not through different dimensions.

It turns out we're in one of those looping cosmologies where the whole universe just repeats if you go far enough. It's safely outside our normal light cone, so you'd never be able to tell normally, but that's what the Dimensional Nexus is for.

So the universe is the Prime Earth , and then if you go a couple hundred billion light years in any cardinal* direction, you'll find another Earth. But because of quantum effects, there's slight differences, and the farther from Prime Earth you get, the more slight differences compound on each other, and you end up with worlds that seem stranger and stranger.

And the "local group" is just the 258 Earth's closest to Prime (well, 257 + valentine) , as they're close enough to have humans on them. Past that, you get to dead worlds: there's an earth, it might have life on it, but there's no humans.

Most of these that have been surveyed have zero evidence of there ever having been humans on them, but there's a few that have human artifacts but no living humans. None of these seem to have died in recent memory, ie there's no nuclear winter planets, and the most recent one we see has humanity mostly dying out in the 3rd century PCE, and struggling along until the 11th century PCE when they finally go extinct. It's supposed (but unproven) that many of the artifactless dead worlds are just worlds where humanity (or the entire biosphere) died out so long ago that we can't find any surviving evidence of humanity, but they still did exist in some way.

Past them you get to Missing Worlds : there's no Earth there. You show up in the right position and there's just empty space. A few probes have been dropped in those worlds, and they have completely different solar systems (although one of them (loneluna) seems to have the same solar system, down to the moon still being in roughly the same orbit around the sun... But no Earth. That one is described by 9 out of 10 scientists as "creepy")

Anyway... So the Dimensional Nexus is run by the Prime universe but did you know they didn't discover the tech? It was actually the Bet world that first deployed multiversal travel tech. The Prime verse spotted it immediately and they ended up working together, because at the time Prime was researching the same stuff, they were just slightly behind. I've written about that contact before, in a world of friends.

Prime just ended up being the universe that set of the Dimensional Nexus. As we're always having to tell people, we're not the "space police", we're researchers. The primary goal of the Dimensional Nexus is to learn more about what universes exist and how things are going on them, because of the extreme risk of a war using this technology.

A properly equipped army could transport itself into your city. Sure you can use the DN tech to detect that invasion, but at that point it's already over, you've lost. They have commandos in the presidential mansion and soldiers occupying every street corner. Any attempted resistance would be bloody and short-lived.

So yeah, Prime was like "we gotta make sure there's not a Nazi Earth out there invading the multiverse". They teamed up with Bet and started the Dimensional Nexus to find out if they need to protect themselves and, if they do, how the fuck they do that.

The latter hasn't been promising. If we're not willing to take extreme measures like hiding off-earth and reshaping the planet to be a trap to travelers, about the only action you can take is "preemptive attack". You kill them before they have a chance to attack you. Like that old metaphor for interstellar war, it's hide and seek with missile launchers. As soon as you spot another 'verse with DN tech, you kill them before they kill you. Nasty warfare.

But the former has been promising. We've got no nazis worlds. The world's are all different in small to big ways, but none of them seem to be either:

1. Run by expansive fascist empires, or

2. on the verge of discovering DN tech

So the Dimensional Nexus is mainly watching and waiting and studying. We're trying to better understand how and why the different Earths are different, and we're keeping an eye on any scientists experimenting with doing a neutrino slingshot through neutron stars.

We also do a lot of death earth exploration these days. Up until '74 when valentine was discovered, we we're pretty sure there were only 257 worlds. valentine is in some kind of island of stability out in the dead worlds, and we don't know if that's because of the unique time shot going on, or if that's coincidental.

There is a bit of tendency for the current year on an Earth to be farther back from the Prime present, the further they are from Prime, but it's usually only a few decades at most, and even that wouldn't correctly describe valentine. They're in the 20s (ish: their timeline went chaotic so time tends to move sideways, not forward) but with how far out they are they should only be in like the 1980s.

Anyway the discovery of valentine changed things: we though there were no living worlds in the dead zone, turns out there's at least one, so now we gotta make sure there's not two. Thus all the exploring. We don't want to find out there's at least two worlds in the dead zone, valentine and jetpackhitler.

So yeah! Over the last 30 years since the Gravekeeper Mission started, we've cataloged about 78% of the dead worlds. We'll be done in another 10 years, and then the only worry is from something in the Missing Zone.

Oh for the record, your world (the reader) is 91verse. That's one of the middle earths (NO LOTR JOKES) where you're weird but not too weird. Like, you've still got dogs and English and capitalism, while the edgeworlds might not. (that time/distance thing is why it's still 2024 PCE for y'all, instead of 2118 PCE)

Also someone had asked about a previous post I made (indirectly. No computers in the Nexus, thanks to the temporal flux) how I knew some information: did I really go to Belgium and ask around until I found Ariana Grande on a farm with her husband?

No, of course not. I used our surveillance tech. One of the main things that's been done to watch for potential rivals in the DN tech arms race is build a lot of ways to spy on people in other universes. And specifically one major area of effort is doing cross-universe matching: you pick someone in one universe and find that identical person in other universes.

That way if there's some genius scientist in one world who has some neutrino-slingshot theories, we can quickly look them up in other universes to make sure they're not doing the same there. And it's very commonly misused by fools like me to see what a celebrity from this world is doing in others. It's always funny to look up the president or the best paid actor and find there's a universe where they instead are a kindergarten teacher.

It's a bit of a privacy invasion but the Dimensional Nexus is already the biggest privacy invasion in the multiverse (a term we still use despite it being wrong: there's only one universe!), and it's justified by those in charge that it's the only way to prevent an unwinnable DN war. We either invade everybody or we spy on everybody to make sure they don't invade everybody. Yeah. I'm just here for fieldwork, if you have a problem with it talk to the politicians who set up this thing.

Final fun fact: when the Dimension Nexus was set up, it was representatives of 5 earths: Prime, Bet, john1135, carshop, and blacksky. Because those are some of the first universes found, they're very similar... Right down to their leaders.

So there's 5 signatures on the declaration and THREE OF THEM are PM Thiers!

You should see the photo. It looks like a set of triplets setting up the worst boy band imaginable. (I can't sent the image with this post because of the no-computers thing)

* I do not have nearly enough time to explain what "cardinal" means in terms of multiversal geometry.

[httpvomitello]

Hi is it possible to have rise Donnie x male reader. For the scenario, Donnie decides to introduce the reader to his family and to April and to Casey. And he is stressed about doing it. The reader likes technology like Donnie and the reader has no family anymore

(Sorry for the spelling mistakes, English is not my first language)

Have a good day ٩( ᐛ )و

Hello, hello! Don't worry, English is not my first language too 🫠. Hope you like it! ♡♡♡♡

Family Circuits *⁠.⁠✧

Donatello Hamato was not the type to get nervous. He was calm, collected, and logical in all situations. But as he paced back and forth in his lab, his three-fingered hands twisting a wrench absentmindedly, it was clear he was unraveling.

“Okay, Donatello,” he muttered to himself. “You’ve faced mutants, Foot Clan warriors, and apocalyptic scenarios. Introducing Y/N to your family should be child’s play. Easy. Simple.”

But it wasn’t. Because this was you. His boyfriend. The person who understood him better than anyone else. You who shared his love for technology, always eager to test his latest inventions or geek out over a new piece of hardware. You, who had no family left and had found a place in Donnie’s meticulously guarded heart.

And now, it was time for you to meet his family.

The day of the meeting arrived, and you found yourself walking into the Lair for the first time. The place was a chaotic blend of high-tech and homey, with skateboards leaning against walls and arcade games blinking in the background.

Donnie’s brothers were already there, along with April and Casey. The moment you stepped in, all eyes turned to you.

“Guys, this is Y/N,” Donnie said, his voice a little too loud. “Y/N, these are my brothers: Leo, Raph, and Mikey.”

Leo stepped forward first. “So, you’re the tech guy Donnie’s always talking about,” he said with a smirk. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“Likewise,” you replied, shaking his hand.

Raph was next, giving you a firm but friendly nod. “Good to meet ya, man. Donnie’s lucky to have someone who gets all that tech stuff.”

Then came Mikey, who immediately pulled you into a hug. “Welcome to the fam, dude!” he said, grinning from ear to ear.

“And these are our friends,” Donnie continued, gesturing to April and Casey.

April gave you a warm smile. “It’s great to meet you. Donnie’s mentioned you a lot.”

Casey, ever the wildcard, punched your arm lightly. “Any friend of Donnie’s is a friend of ours.”

Donnie watched the introductions with a mix of relief and lingering tension. So far, so good.

As the evening went on, you quickly found yourself fitting in. Donnie’s brothers were loud, energetic, and a little overwhelming at times, but they were also incredibly welcoming.

At one point, Leo challenged you to a game of Battle Nexus. You held your own surprisingly well, earning a grudging nod of approval from the blue-clad turtle.

“You’re not bad,” Leo admitted. “For a first-timer.”

Mikey dragged you into the kitchen to help make pizza, while Raph showed you his collection of action figures.

Meanwhile, April and Casey peppered you with questions about your interests and how you and Donnie met.

“Okay, but how do you deal with Donnie’s tech rants?” Casey asked, laughing.

“Oh, I love them,” you said without missing a beat. “I could listen to him talk about quantum mechanics all day.”

Donnie, who had been quietly observing from a distance, felt his heart swell.

Later, after everyone had settled into their respective activities, Donnie pulled you aside.

“You’re doing great,” he said, his voice softer. “They like you.”

You smiled, squeezing his hand. “They’re amazing, Donnie. I can see why you’re so close to them.”

He hesitated for a moment before speaking again. “I was... worried. About how this would go. About how you’d feel, meeting them.”

“Donnie,” you said gently, “you don’t have to worry. I’ve never felt more at home.”

His grip on your hand tightened slightly. “You deserve a family, Y/N. And I want you to know... you’re a part of mine now.”

Your chest tightened at his words, and you leaned in, resting your forehead against his after leaving a kiss on his lips. “Thank you, babe. That means everything to me.”

[askvectorprime]

A question I’ve had for a very long time; why is Xobitor considered its own cluster and not just part of Cymond?

Dear Cluster Concerned,

Many have asked that very question.

I remember back when the Cymond cluster was first discovered, following a Waruder infestation on Axiom Nexus, the Ministry for Higher Dimensional Sciences was in furious debate over the cluster and its ramifications. And to make matters worse, the Xobitor cluster seemed very much related to it. Many felt the Xobitor cluster should be folded into Cymond; others felt that due to the rules of primacy, all of the tentative Cymond streams should instead be cataloged as Xobitor, since it had first been categorized. Bots argued for cycles about quark flavors, quantum resonances, dimensional strings… It was, in short, exhausting.

The current Xobitor and Cymond Cluster designations are in some ways a compromise, as most things are when it comes to Universal Streams. Xobitor is distinguished by the existence of a Cybertron analogue named Skalorr—with Cymond streams, by contrast, being commonly recognised as having no direct analogues to Cybertron.

[goodolddumbbanana]

BE A MIRROR [3]

An Au when Sun is dead (by Nexus), Dark Sun pretends to be Sun while trying to find some way to revive him in secret. Nexus is having a mental breakdown, maybe get some redemption later. Everyone is not having a good time except Sun, that poor boy only when he is dead (temporarily) can get some rest.

Summary: In this AU, This is the time when Sun and Dark Sun start gradually becoming quite closer. They were still very wary of each other, but more or less, it was less tense than before.

What is the value of a life? If a human life is priceless, then how much pain and suffering does Sun have to pay for his sins so he can wash all the blood off his hands?

Technically, he has never killed anyone. It's always Moon, or Eclipse, or Bloodmoon or someone else. Sun was always the 'innocent' one in everything.

And isn't it ironic that Sun, after everything, is still at the center of all the destruction, like a curse that brings death?

The reason why he used so much detergent to clean himself and everything in daycare. Or how sometimes Sun would see a red color at the edges of his eyes that wasn't there, or feel a sickly dirt like mud stuck to his metal shell.

It feels like a sign that his subconscious is trying to say something is wrong that Sun actively ignores.

"Are you always this dazed when playing games or do I myself always have a special honor to experience it?"

An annoying voice rang in Sun's ear, something Sun had been trying to ignore for the past 15 minutes or so but failing miserably.

Sun never thought hearing his own voice could be so unpleasant. He always felt a little bit self conscious about his voice because his voice was quite high, but being the one to hear it directly, made him feel sorry for his listeners because he used to speak very loudly in the past.

A face identical to his, with a bland smile that never reached the bottom of their eyes and empty red eyes that seemed to have given up on the world, this annoying visitor often appeared at random times and only left when they wanted.

"Why did you keep breaking into my house here? Do you have anything to do? Moon is busy in his lab, just go and put your cryptid show on him." Sun asked weakly. He didn't really expect an answer, knowing that it would only lead to a metaphorical can of worms that he never wanted to open.

After the appearance of M–Nexus… Dark Sun became Moon's lower threat enemy. The priority one is Nexus. His brother was busy in the lab with Ruin and Puppet, tracking Nexus's whereabouts. 

Moon invited him to go, but honestly, he couldn't help, with all the complicated AI and quantum physics theories that both Ruin and Moon knew so well… It would be better for Sun if he just stayed home. And practice magic.

It is really weird that both Moon and Puppet's machines can rarely see the Dark Sun. He is like a ghost in the eyes of the “All-Seeing One” and these geniuses. And everytime, Dark Sun shows up, there is something troubling, again.

"Can't I come see what I'm doing?" Dark Sun hummed, he looked at Sun and up at the television screen playing "Cult of the Lamb" in what, if Sun didn't know better, he would have considered a look of disgust but nostalgia.

"Don't make me laugh, you always want something, mister 'I don't care about anything unless it benefits me somehow'.”

Sun focused on the final boss, his hoarse voice box echoing a dull rhythm. There was no response, just a slight movement that shook the soft sofa he was sitting on. A bright yellow body chose a comfortable position right in the center of the chair, blatantly, something Sun himself would never be comfortable enough to do so. Too much open space, too few grip points. There is a feeling of being exposed and naked shaking Sun’s inexistent skin, causing Sun's system to always flash an unpleasant red warning.

Why even though the Creator hates them so much, he's still so invested in a delicate area like emotions?

What does a robot need emotions for?

Just to feel dead in the feet and hope tomorrow will not be worse than today?

There was a brief moment of depression as he thought about his hated father, before hearing a solid sound with a slight accent, almost like that British Ruin loved to show off himself with.

Is it self-awareness because Dark Sun feels like he shouldn't be too similar to Sun so he behaves more like Ruin?

Sun's AI brain weaves its way through logical thoughts, morphing and dancing in the form of 1s and 0s.

The bright light on the screen was almost a hypnotic drug, making Sun reduce the stress he felt that had been present since Dark Sun arrived.

“I've played this game before too… Too much management and responsibility, not really my taste.”

Sun suppressed his bites. 'If that's the case, why don't you just leave me alone?', but he was too tired, he no longer had the strength to care or even respond.

The space sank into silence again, with bustling electronic noise, almost like white noise, lulling Sun into a feeling of sleepiness.

“Orange juice?”

"Right?" Sun nodded confusedly. On the table top of them are just a glass of orange juice, and it's always been orange juice for the past few weeks, nothing has changed. Why does Dark Sun act like it's odd?

“Hmm.” Dark Sun hummed. “No more wine?”

"I do not drink alcohol anymore." Sun replied defensively, feeling as if he was ruffling feathers. He was so tired of these jokes from Monty and Puppet or those concerns from Earth that he is drinking too much or he is an alcoholic, he didn't need any more words from that guy.

“The other day it seemed like it was a lie.”

Things start to become awkward.

No one said anything next, neither Sun nor Dark Sun wanted to rekindle the event that caused the annual stormy evenings where Dark Sun appeared unusually with lies like this, just to hang out with Sun.

Something about Dark Sun always comes on cloudy days.

It wasn't exactly raining, as it seemed stormy and the water here almost never reached the island.

No, it was the kind of weather where the stifling oppressive heat of the sun turned everything gray, of the wind being quiet and the sunset melting on the edge of sand crumbs torn apart by the tide.

Perhaps it was dramatic, as the nature of every Sun and Moon had always been inherited from their 'dear father' in every line of code. To choose to always appear in those moments when gray shards as smooth as egg whites are whipped to the edge of the sky, like a novice chef's masterpiece blend with a child trying to beat the paper with paint. Sun just hides it better than Moon, and at the same time he has too much anxiety and lacks energy to be able to continue that ‘dramatic role’ for long.

Dark Sun appears, it's almost like looking into a distorted mirror, that never allows you to see your true self form but always in some deformed variation.

Sun's stupid thought was that Dark Sun always appeared at this time because he wanted to match the name they gave him.

“I don't really care if you drink or not.” Dark Sun hummed, stood up and casually walked into the kitchen as if he owned the place, taking out two shiny bottles of wine. Dark Sun's rays of light twisted and moved with each step of Dark Sun like the way a cat wags its tail when something stimulates its curiosity.

“Isn't it tiring trying to please everyone?”

The reddish brown color ripples in the glass bottle, like the enticement of the snake in the Garden of Eden. Annoyed at the way he was being read so clearly, Sun grabbed the bottle from Dark Sun's hand and gulped it down.

Then one sip.

One more sip.

Another sip…

One more… and one more…

The smell of alcohol spread in the air and rippled in Sun's hands. The bell clanged against the side of the jar, perhaps a few drops of wine got on the red cloth wrapped around Sun's wrist.

“Hmm… How long has it been since you drank? And I'm not talking about 'last time'.” Dark Sun took a sip.

The person in front of him was indifferent, calmly took the controller in Sun's hand and chose to sacrifice instead of killing the boss like Sun was trying to do. That fucker even killed Sun's first apostle without hesitation.

“Weeks… Months? Before that Moo–n… Nexus… They, Earth didn't like me doing this very much. So I switched to soda.”

“But soda is horrible.”

“Yeah… It tastes really bad.” The alcohol made Sun chuckles.

“I don't understand why they are so worried. Aren't we all robots?”

“That's exactly what I said, and the bottle, it's just this small…”

“It's not enough to make me dizzy…”

Sun's voice sounded like he was shouting, he leaned back in his chair, wondering why everything seemed so normal.

Why did he let Dark Sun in, why did he only warn Moon about Dark Sun's appearance, but never about the moments when they sat down to play games and drink together.

A song and dance Sun and Dark Sun, forcefully have played with each other so damn countless times, with Dark Sun’s words always lurking menace behind them, and his clichés about tentative plans for an uncertain future, entangled in the webs of lies like the strings of a puppeteer, that Sun cannot understand and does not want to understand.

As always, Dark Sun will appear suddenly when Sun is alone, asking random questions about someone who is not there as if hoping that Sun has the answer before they both sit down and play games or just drink together.

How did their relationship become like this? Sun really didn't know.

About how it started or why it continued, even though he knew Dark Sun had a hidden agenda and was only taking advantage of him, even though both of them know they can never be friends, when Dark Sun is still actively a threat to Sun's family.

Perhaps it was the feeling of being understood without being wanted that drew them together. Both are like two sides of the same coin, over time they have been destroyed in different ways that cannot be repaired or came back.

Like trying to pour water into a broken vase, a meaningless action that only crazy people and idiots would continue to do.

If Sun fills that void in his chest with family, with cleaning, with giving himself a purpose to live for. Then Dark Sun just tries to destroy everything by himself to escape from reality. He surrounds himself with a layer of armor full of spikes, blocking anyone who wants to enter, numbing all his feelings until the days they become too hard to crack.

It was a strange thing that Sun wanted to say he understood that feeling, and sometimes, sometimes, he longed for it.

Not like M-New Old Moon, Nexus tearing down and throwing away everything, heading down a path of destruction without even caring how much it affects everyone. A liar, a liar, a liar. Words mumbling in Sun’s head like there is still someone in there. A bitter and sick to his stomach whenever Sun thinks about this... brother.

No, what Sun wants to talk about here is about just being alone and normal, where you just live and don’t have to care or need to care about anyone.

Why did Sun say that? Such ungrateful things about his family, who care deeply about him?

Maybe because that love and care that his family gave Sun sometimes felt like a burning fire, that made him burn when he touched.

Maybe because he just wants to look and care from afar, but doesn't want to touch or be close to them?

Sun loved Earth, she was the best sister he could ask for.

Sun also cherishes Lunar, his mischievous, sometimes crazy younger brother, who acts innocent and childish but actually a stone cold brat from the inside due to the trauma and manipulation that Eclipse caused, sometimes make Sun feels like looking at a twisted combination of him and Moon with sharp words and intelligence hidden in Lunar’s starry eyes.

Despite all the miserable things his brothers put him through and even now, despite the smoldering bitterness still gnawing at his heart, Sun also loves Moon with all his heart, both old and new.

But sometimes, Sun just wants to stay away. It's confusing to say, but Sun is fine with the occasional game together and these terrible jokes, but when stepping into the boundary of care and love, Sun just wants to stay away or cower like a maggot.

It is not worth it.

Sun is not worth it.

Sun doesn't deserve that love and attention.

Why are people always so close, so demanding, so caring to him?

Why does the way Moon tries to make amends, or Earth visits him more and more often, or Lunar gives him a touch or a knowing look, make him sicker than this evil version of himself sitting here? .

Dark Sun doesn't care. Dark Sun never cared. He was just using Sun as a distraction. Or a backup of a backup of a backup of some… he doesn't know, maybe some of his evil plans.

But strangely, Sun feels so comfortable. It's like breathing fresh air. A collar that has been taken out, making Sun easy to breathe. They are not even the same, with totally completely different personalities and intelligence. Heck, even Dark Sun doesn't like “Cult of the Lamb” or he is being too manipulative and indifferent to Sun's liking.

But their essence was still Sun, and even though Sun was stupid, he could still see the core features still there, behind the worn and distorted exterior of a person named Dark Sun. And isn't it disgusting, to feel more comfortable with a version so different and so similar to yourself than with your loved one?

Self-destruction is a curse. A realization lit up in Sun's head, realizing how in the way Eclipses all hated Moon but still wanted his approval, how Solar was scared of Moon but still supported him like a workaholic, how Ruin hated Moon’s guts so much but he still appreciated Moon’s intelligence.

Something about them all have things in common. They all hate, if not hate, then blatantly looking down at Sun, or consider Sun to be too dumb to consist as a threat.

Once may be a coincidence, but two or three people agree on the same opinion, then it’s not their fault, but him. Perhaps, it's just the truth that Sun hates himself so much that his code is passed on to others that are embedded in their subconscious hatred for Sun.

That's the hard truth. Sun just despises himself.

And Dark Sun even hated Sun, and his hatred and critics caused Sun more discomfort than others.

But surprisingly, it's also more comfortable…

Maybe it's because Dark Sun hates him, not because he's stupid or helpless.

Dark Sun hates him because he was once Sun, because he knows Sun can do better...

And because this hate is as familiar as an old blanket. A phantom pain, like the way his body twitched slightly and his fan ran a little too fast when he was in a closed space or he saw something red in the corner of Sun’s eyes.

Though, this hatred goes both in the same places.

Sun hates how Dark Sun can look straight in Sun’s soul to determine how much he is worth. He also hates how Dark Sun shows how bad Sun can become.

He also hated Dark Sun because actually he was just Sun, it was just circumstances that made that person change, that makes Dark Sun different. 

This is sick, disgusting even..

There must be something wrong that happened with Sun, which could cause Sun to have thoughts of sympathizing with this person's actions and thoughts, like Dark Sun deserves sympathy.

Their hate draws each other closer like a fragile chain, an unhealthy relationship, a deceitful friendship of one side covering their eyes and the other covering their ears.

“I wish if you hated me so much, you could just kill me instead of approaching me like this.”

It was dark outside. With only the buzzing sound of the game console and his cats in the basement.

“You… You guys… are all the same… Why can't I have a normal day…”

Sun didn't know if it was him talking or the bottle of wine talking. That's strange... Sun shouldn't be drunk, the bottle is really too small.

“Maybe if I close my eyes and then open them again, all this… crazy stuff will go away… I'll just be me, a regular Sun…”

“And you would accept that? Instead of taking charge of your own destiny, you just want to lie there like a snail waiting to die, right?”

A silence responded. Sun raised his eyes... Red electronic light flashed behind the milky white shell seemingly annoyed.

“Just keep chewing like that day after day. Crying and moaning like that, Sun, do you think it would solve anything?"

“I just don't know what to do…” Sun mumbled, his hand wrapped tightly around the bottle of wine, hugging it to his chest as if he wanted it to protect him.

“You will die soon in the future if you stay like this.”

The words were indifferent and cold, as if reflecting a truth, a truth that Sun had witnessed many times in different dimensions, and in the dimensions that Dark Sun showed Sun.

“ Like I don't know. ” Sun's shadow shines in front of the piece of glass, revealing a sad and exhausted face. The eyes, once bright blue, had turned white since the day Sun used magic to expel Eclipse from Sun's head.

A silence, nearly peaceful silence, between their two, like hands in hand in the drawing sea.

“Oh… Hmm… By the way, I accidentally killed Narinder.”

There was silence. And then the scream that followed almost alarmed the other side of the island.

“YOU SON OF B%TCH!!! WHY DID YOU KILL MY WIFE!!!”

[financieur]

#FINANCIALBRANCH. Money makes the world go round, and the same saying was true for Spectre, and its' successor, Quantum. The finance branch was born the same day as Spectre itself, along with other ever-present branches like Counter-Intelligence and Tactical Operations [ known as Soldiery until the 70s ]. Despite those antique roots, the financial branch evolved constantly to remain at the vanguard of their trade, often being ahead of the competition.

The branch's primary reason to be was to manage Spectre's financial assets and keep those well invested, as well as making sure those funds were ready for use. As time passed it evolved to offering similar financial services for organizations that were, for one reason or another, restricted from accessing legitimate banking systems. Any organization was welcome to their services, as long as they could find it and afford it.

Like all other branches, the Finance Branch operates behind the mask of multiple other front companies, all in order to hide the true name and nature of their organization. There are five major companies that act as pillars to the branch: Nexus Investment & Management, Suisse de L'Industrie, Eisenband, CX Worldwide and Qoya Capital. All of those fronts operate in legal means, providing clean profit and a way to clean their own illegal funds.

The branch holds headquarters in 29 countries [ Monaco, New York, Dubai, London and Tokyo being the biggest ones ], servers in 9 countries and it operates in all 253 territories [ 193 U.N recognized countries, 55 dependent territories and 4 territories with ongoing struggles ] with only Antarctica being uncovered.

The current triad in control of the Financial Branch is composed by Le Chiffre [ Alias, real name Marcel Renè Venier-Couvillon, operating as Jacquin Allard and other 12 identities ], Beatrice Trauschke and Cissonius  [ Alias, real name Daniel Wright, operating as Henry Thompson and other 5 identities ]. This is the team responsible for overseeing all the activities, legal and otherwise, under the umbrella of the Financial branch, and are the arbitrators behind every dispute regarding the path of the branch, furthermore, they each oversee one of the subsidiaries controlled by the branch, respectively Nexus, La Banque Suisse de L'Industrie and Eisenband Capital.

Nexus in an asset management company, with its expertise laid in private banking, brokerage, consultation and management of wealth for both individuals and companies. La Banque Suisse de L'Industrie is a multinational bank with focus in providing international banking services and financial support lines for companies and organizations. Eisenband Capital is a capital market group, specialized in locating and funding or acquiring companies that are branded as promising in their respective areas.

All those companies serve the true purpose of acting as the backbone of Quantum, controlling the entirety of the Group's financial transactions, investments, liquid assets and casinos.

The front companies have plenty legitimate clients, being well known companies in the international economic landscape, and their public services can be hired as any other bank, however that process is more complex when regarding their backdoor business. For an organization or individual to be able to utilize Quantum's international banking services they must be given referral by another organization that runs money through them or pass a screening process in person done by someone assigned by the Financial Branch [ this is the process that determines operational costs, liabilities, calculate management fee and open space for negotiation before drawing a contract ], as well as offer an initial amount of 50 millions USD or more. Management fee for illicit businesses vary between 3% and 12% of the total value, depending on region, risk, logistics and nature of business.

Those accounts must name a successor or benefactor for the managed assets in case of death of the account's responsible or the hiring organization's leadership. In case one of those stances happen, the successor musr claim ownership of the account within 90 days or the assets become permanent property of Quantum.

All of their financial services count on extensive infrastructure: offices in most major cities, digital applications and management tools, multiple payment methods, liquid assets transportation and storage services, and dedicated managers to larger accounts. For clients who can't afford any form of visibility, alternative methods of access are offered, such as in-person services for added management fees or 1-to-1 kinds of cryptocurrency.

The financial branch is also responsible for any transactions, payments and debt collections that might be necessary to Quantum's operations. For the funding of their underbelly operations, the financial branch provides the other branches or the service providing organizations with payment options in cryptocurrency or unmarked gold bars, as those are untraceable. For payment of bounties or first-serve-first-come opportunities, to-the-bearer medallions are given and can be collected in any casino controlled by Quantum in the currency of choice. And finally, for collaborators who need to take a large amount of cash abroad, torn playing cards [ digitally marked for authentication ] can be traded for money or gold in any CX Worldwide agency.

Debt is collected after a 90 days tolerance period, during which no large transactions are allowed to the debtor's account, and in case of failure to provide payment, all assets are seized. If the amount within the accounts lack enough funds to cover the debt, Tactical Operations are contacted for direct interference and seizing of any found liquid asset. Attempts to interrupt the seizing are answered with significant force.

FOR FURTHER DETAILS, DOUBTS OR WANTED INFORMATION: ASK!

[draptorronin]

Here's the other Hadron Snakeel species.

[musclesandhammering]

But How Strong Is the God of Stories in a Fight?

I’ve been browsing through mcu ‘who would win’ posts on social media (bc they’re unavoidable and I like to torture myself) and I noticed a few common themes when it comes to our new GOS!Loki. First, people act like it’s a given that he’s never gonna be able to get up from that chair, which is… highly unlikely.

There’s a nearly unanimous consensus among meta bloggers and theorists and industry leakers that he’s going to have a huge role in the rest of the multiverse saga (particularly Secret Wars), and one of the most reliable marvel leakers said recently that he’d likely rejoin the fight by timeslipping into a past version of himself (so that he can exist on the throne and in a seperate place on the timeline simultaneously without having to let go of the branches- think quantum superposition). And we know Loki retains all his new powers when he timeslips (see: citadel scene in 2x6), so my point is: it’s highly probable that we will see the new and improved Loki out of his tree and back in a fight setting eventually. (Now a lot of people have said that’s impossible bc he’s now so op that any fight with him in it would be either 2 seconds long or just unrealistic. I disagree- when he’s not on the throne, he’s not omniscient or omnipotent. Strong asf, yes, but still usable in battle as long as his opponent is also a multiversal being.) But that brings me to my next point:

Most people on marvel twitter/Tiktok/Youtube/etc seem to be missing the point a bit. Every argument I’ve seen for ‘Loki solos [insert name here]’ has been based on the fact that he’s currently holding all of time together. Stuff along the lines of “he can move his finger and delete ~so and so~ out of existence!!”. And I mean.. sure. Not.. entirely accurate. But ok. But like… him sitting in a chair, holding onto the branches is not what makes him badass. That’s not the feat. In fact, I would argue that there are several other op characters that could sit and hold just as good as he can. If that was the main takeaway from that ending. But it’s not. So what were his actual feats in the finale, if not that? Well-

EDIT: I rewrote a lot of this for accuracy (because my understanding of the complicated-ass mcu multiverse is still evolving & since initially posting this, I’ve realised that my first reading of it was wrong. In short, I thought Loki was holding the entire multiverse but have since discovered that that’s way off. He’s holding a multiverse- a section of the larger one- all the universes that used to make up the Sacred Timeline. Which was not every universe in existence, but rather the ones without dangerous Kang variants which He Who Remains was able to gather up & weave into the ST). Anyway! Feats in the finale:

first of all, he’s immune to temporal radiation. He’s also immune to spaghettification (see: 2x5 when everyone is stringing away except for him). This isn’t just a few gamma waves- this is the force that destroys entire universes (implying that no one in those universes can withstand it- not Thor, not Thanos, not Captain Marvel, etc). The fact that Loki remains, even when whatever universe he’s in ceases to exist, could imply that he’s a nexus being. But it could also imply he’s just really powerful.

his telekinesis (I’m guessing that’s what he used?) is strong enough to destroy the loom- the giant piece of technology that was responsible for controlling all of existence.

his magic is nearly infinite- he has a nearly limitless supply of energy. He was able to revive every universe in the Sacred Timeline collection- which, in itself, is a theoretically infinite mini multiverse (according to Victor Timely in 2x6) with ease, and is now acting as a battery powering the ever-expanding branches of time completely on his own, indefinitely. So, theoretically, it would be impossible to drain him of his power (like Agatha did Wanda, Wanda did Maria, etc) because his power isn’t finite. I’m assuming this has a lot to do with what Victor Timely explained about entropy & time (see: 2x3).

he can open a rift in spacetime to anywhere- even the end of time, which is supposed to be inaccessible. This is essentially a version of America Chavez’s powers. To clarify, America’s powers are space-based while Loki’s are time-based. He’s presumably able to go to parallel universes now, but this is because the Sacred Timeline has branched enough that the branches can act as bridges to other universes, and he can travel along them. It is possible, however, that he was able to do this even before the ST was freed, because of his ability to access the Citadel & TVA in 2x6- places existing outside of the multiverse.

he has a rightful place on the throne at the end of time- more so than He Who Remains, even. This is pretty obscure and wouldn’t really help in a fight- but it’s an impressive feat, nonetheless. When he starts toward the place where the citadel used to be, a staircase forms for him & the gold from the kintsugi cracks in the walls all flows to his throne, causing the remains of the citadel to break away- almost as if it had been waiting for him to arrive.

he was able to reorganise the structure of a section of the multiverse (theoretically infinite universes) to his liking. He changed it from its original linear shape to the shape of a tree, so that it could expand & grow infinitely (which was really clever of him actually).

Those were the bits just in that finale sequence that are impressive as hell. These are all things he can do when he’s not sitting on the throne, when he’s not holding the branches. That doesn’t even include his other time-related powers from earlier in the episode & ep 5. Such as:

He’s a living version of HWR’s master tempad. He can travel freely via interconnected timelines & beyond them, to any time and any place- even ones that don’t exist anymore/yet.

He can timeslip to any point in spacetime he wants with his current body or he can timeslip into a past/future version of himself (as I mentioned in the intro, that second part will probably be very relevant in upcoming movies).

He can read people’s temporal auras & use them as coordinates to locate those people (or those people’s variants) across the timelines (and even in places outside the multiverse).

He can time travel in places that theoretically have no time- or at least, they’re separated from the multiversal flow of time (the TVA, the citadel).

He can affect & even rewrite stories/timelines without creating a new branched reality. (Him timeslipping back & tampering with events in A.D. Doug’s lab or in the loom room or in the citadel didn’t create new branches with variants etc, it just changed the trajectory of whichever branch he was currently on.) He’s essentially the exception to the mcu’s established time travel rules.

When he goes back in time, he can choose whether to rewrite a timeline or simply allow a new branch to form. When he had his conversation with 1x1 Mobius in the finale, he created a branch which was then deleted, but at other points in the episode, he instead altered future events on a single timeline.

He can create variants without a nexus event. When he takes his friends from their timelines in 2x5, we can tell that those timelines didn’t branch any further because we see Don still talking to Loki right in front of them.

He can pause time, step outside of time, and presumably fast forward or rewind it. That big climactic moment in 2x5 when he learns to control his powers? That wasn’t timeslipping- that was him rewinding time. If you look closely, after he goes back a few seconds, you can see the spaghettification strands reverse & actually leave the frame while he’s talking to Sylvie, whereas a few seconds earlier we saw them entering.

He can delete entire timelines at will (even while he’s on them). He created a branch to go back & talk to Mobius in the finale, then when he was done, he deleted it. This is presumption, but there’s really no other explanation.

He can repel existence erasure (at least temporarily, on a small scale). Again, we saw him reverse the spaghettification strands & make them go away to protect his friends at the end of 2x5.

This one is theoretical, but since he was able to cause an entire timeline to spaghettify, it’s highly likely that he can spaghettify things/people at will. (courtesy of @emotionalflamingo <3)

Those are things directly related to him becoming God of Stories, but there’s also a few other new powers they introduced/old powers they expanded on throughout the course of both seasons:

Pyrokinesis. Setting the sword on fire (1x5). This is inconsequential in the way it was used, but it creates potential for Loki to do some pretty cool stuff.

Transmutation. Turned his TVA clothes into a guards’ uniform in 1x3.

Elemental Manipulation. Dried his clothes in 1x2. Also his story in Thor 1 about veiling himself & Thor in smoke/mist.

Energy blasts. This is one of those things that we all knew he obviously had to be able to do, but they never showed it on screen until this series.

Stronger telekinesis. We saw him use it a couple times in The Avengers & Thor The Dark World, but I would argue that catching an entire skyscraper about to fall on you is a lot more consequential than tossing a few chairs around.

Teleportation. This is another thing that was implied he could do but was never outright shown until the series. And it’s worth mentioning that he can also teleport other people/objects (see: him sending the asshole to the pig pen in 2x3)

Enchantment. Yes, I know he’s shown using mind manipulating powers in the movies, but I think enchantment is different because it essentially allows you to possess someone. Like you can just hop in & pilot their body. And the fact that he was able to help enchant Alioth on his first try implies that his enchantment is extremely powerful.

Shadow Casting. That’s just what I’ve decided to call it. Casting pseudo-autonomous shadows that can actually interact with the physical world… isn’t that sorta like a watered down version of what Gorr the God Butcher was doing? Very cool.

EDITING to add the other abilities he’s always had in the mcu:

Asgardian/frost giant strength, speed, durability, longevity, & regenerative healing. He’s extremely durable to all sorts of attacks

Extremely skilled combatant, proficient in knives/swords/spears. So if he’s up against someone who only uses magic- if their magic was somehow blocked or bound- he would have the absolute advantage

Illusions.

Shapeshifting. He can also shapeshift other people (hello turning Thor into a frog)

Astral Projection.

Duplications, Projections. Apparently they’re two different things

Presence Concealment. Strong enough to hide from Heimdall

Conjuration, Pocket Dimension.

Cryokinesis. And immunity to cold

Mind Manipulation. This is different than enchantment in that he doesn’t have to entirely possess somebody- he can just whisper suggestions to them, read their mind, force them to relive memories, etc.

Expert Trickster/Master Manipulator. Don’t discount it. It’s gotten him out of a lot of sticky situations so far.

So yeah. I honestly don’t even know where I was going with this, but I’m just annoyed with people acting like Loki sitting in a chair holding some vines is what makes him formidable, or that once he gets out of the chair he won’t be formidable anymore. The op-ness everyone’s talking about? That’s all about what happened leading up to his tree-sitting. Not the tree-sitting itself.

It’d be so nice to see debates about what he can do now that don’t just revolve around him holding timelines. :/

[loki-who-remains]

I really loved the title of the latest episode, so without further ado let's dive into science and fiction of the TVA. This is all so interesting.

The Loom exploded, apparently annihilating a bunch of timelines that were going through it. And after that went to a fail safe mode, restored and continued to weave like before: see the spinning input ring:

The same ring was moving slow in s2e1:

and completely stuck before the meltdown in s2e4:

Its explosion reset people at the TVA to respective branched timelines. I'm not sure 'the nexus event' is even a thing anymore, but Loki appearing to every one of them could be considered a nexus event if they existed on the Sacred timeline

Quick note before I forget. Time doors and time cubes are of the same nature. I guess if you were somehow to be stuck inside a time door you'd be squished. Another interesting duality of how to use the same tech: to traverse spacetime or to torture and violently kill.

Time cubes are old and have scratchy look, just like the first timedoors OB managed to open. Modern time doors look polished. Probably the old tech was repurposed into torturing devices by Miss Minutes someone else.

AC/DC AD/OB's 'lab':

Is this room safe? For the wormhole or the quantum...? This hole area is totally abandoned. No one's around for miles

OB, area being abandoned doesn't mean it's safe for any wormholes, especially for any people near it. Not even sure about whatever quantum stuff is going on.

But the building isn't random, the room is the same, just repainted. There's even the same chequered pattern on the floor though really faded. Is the TVA on Earth in a time bubble? The Loom has to be on the same level as R&A, so the TVA founders would expand around that abandoned building.

Which would mean that the infinite city around the TVA is an illusion. Or a side effect of the TVA being in some sort of a time bubble.

The question remains of how the Loom fits in with all of it. We've seen it exist suspended in, again, a seemingly infinite space. Let's say, its very construction can attract and visualise the raw time-matter (I'm still in denial of time being a matter, no matter how much I sciencefiction it in my head). When you look closely you see that timeline threads take shape the closer they are to the input ring of the Loom. But where do the weaved output timelines go? Do they go around, surrounding the TVA in a circle? And then inevitably branch, become formless and chaotic and have to be weaved back again?

Let's imagine that the TVA sits in the centre of time which flows around it and being recycled and reordered so the timelines co-exist without damaging each other. The Loom powers the TVA, and since past, present and future exist all the time, it's a life-long power source, Timely's dream.

That would explain how HWR sits in a castle in the centre of a manufactured, isolated Sacred timeline. His tempad isn't of TVA design. Was he inspired or did he just invade the TVA and steal their concepts and ideas? (Despite being himself involved with the creation of the Loom) Repurposed time doors into time cubes. Reshaped a multiverse protecting team of people into a purely bureaucratic time police.