#au proposal

At the very least, they could have shown that the Aether was actually killing her slowly from the inside. Because she hardly batted an eye about having it inside her until she got it taken out. Yeah yeah, I get it, showing a sick and dying female protagonist would be sexist. But if it was going to kill her, then show it being a threat to her. Otherwise, we’re all here wondering if she’s Star-lord’s half-sister (which I don’t object to tbh). 

But here’s my controversial proposal: After Jane discovers the Aether, and it goes inside of her, she discovers by some accident that she can do things with it--like when Darcy comes running up to her, Darcy touches her and she gets blown to the ground instantly. And then the police run up to her to arrest her on various trumped charges and they get blasted aside, too. When Thor arrives, Jane is like, no, I actually think I’m fine, I feel fine. I can take care of myself. 

Thor shrugs it off and goes back to Asgard. But he and Heimdall keep an eye on her. Jane discovers that the Aether can bend to her will, she can levitate things, she can stop traffic, she can move entire buildings. If someone doesn’t like her or agree with her, she can blow them up. Or at least hurt them. She can transform things, change matter into something it is not. And then, in her scientific research, she can look into outer space and see the stars up close, the Aether gives her x-ray vision et cetera and she can see how the fabric of the universe works and how the Convergence functions. 

And then the Aether talks to her--it doesn’t whisper actual words, but it tells her things that she can understand. 

Selvig and Darcy start to express concern, but Jane insists she’s fine. But then she starts to notice the bad side effects--she feels tired, she gets headaches, she loses appetite. And as the Aether “talks” to her, it tells her about Malekieth and the Dark Elves, about how the normal EM spectrum of the universe is unnatural and the cosmos needs to be restored to darkness. Ant it won’t leave her alone. 

She takes herself to Asgard. The Svarthaelfheim have been watching her, watching the Aether grow stronger inside of her. As the Asgardians try to figure out if they can remove the Aether from her safely, Malekieth attacks. She fights them off on her own with the Aether (they are insulted, to say the least). Frigga still dies defending her. Odin comes up with a way to imprison Jane with his own magic, but after several hours of resistance, she breaks free. The Aether tells her to go to Svarthaelfheim and surrender to Malekieth. Thor follows her because he realizes it’s the only way. 

I’m not sure how it would play out after that. One scenario would be Malekieth not sucking the Aether out of Jane but instead keeping her as a hostage, and the Aether taking total control of her mind and trying to use her to wipe out the Universe during the convergence. Perhaps she dies. I’m not sure how Loki fits in the mix--maybe Jane “kills” him.