Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-3123266-20140303175822/@comment-2127388-20140701191402

First thing, I havent said Aether is "parasite", but "parasitic". That means it is anything that requires another thing to gain power. Aether is sucking the life force of its host, and protecting it agaistn anyone that deems it too dangerous for itself, thus it has some sort of sentience or self-preservation sense. If the Stones actually have some sort of sentience is possible, but not important.

The "reality" is a plane of space-time, or rather better said, of all matter in the universe. Everything that exists and you can touch it, is reality. Changing one thing for another, is changing reality. What exactly is dark matter is not certain, but it seems that while it is moving in the "non-touchable" plane, it is still some sort of reality, because Thomas Ford? and Blackout were able to use dark-matter, both by different way. Blackout was in fact able to manipulate reality around himself, able to suck the electricity around himself, and attack with it others. Malekith using Aether, a pure form of dark-matter, was able to physically attack Thor by tendrills and other forms. This may be a blatant nonsense from me, but it may not. I think Aether being Reality Stone makes more sense than being Soul Stone, that dark-matter, a comfirmed element of Aether, has been used in other cases, where nothing like soul was used or hinted.

And that Aether can be solid, liquid or gas, and that it represents the forms of plane the souls is in, there is the only hint at Aether ever being solid is only in the Gems and Orb apparently being "shattered to make the smaller purple gem", thought personally I am more inclined all Infinite Stones have to be smashed to release the energy, which is than absorbed into the Infinity Gauntlet to give it their powers. Makes sense when the colored gems are already on the gauntlet. Without this, there is no hint Aether can change its state, so we should presume it is only gaseous liquid as it is now, or how it is described.

I enjoy this too :D