Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-60.240.118.7-20150105090527/@comment-14267015-20150501212028

In GotG, the Collector shows an image of the six Stones. Odds are that is their normal form, over the years different people have found them and altered the Stones to try and find ways to control them. The Aether for instance, while in a liquid state, can be used by someone, though it will still kill them eventually. The Tesseract holds the Space Stone within it as its power source, but can also use the Stone's own powers: teleportation and creating portals. The Sceptre works the same way, channeling the Mind Stone's raw power for energy blasts but also being able to hypnotize people and allow the user to astral project. The only one that doesn't do this is the Orb, it was made for the strict purpose of containing the Power Stone's energies, not using them.