Time Slipping is an effect where an individual becomes unstuck in time and slips from one time period to another. It is supposed to be impossible to do in the Time Variance Authority Office.
Description[]
After witnessing Loki time slipping Mobius M. Mobius described it as looking like "you're being born or dying or both at the same time." The only known way to fix it was to launch a Temporal Aura Extractor into the Temporal Loom and then have the person encountering time slipping prune themselves which would remove them from the time stream.
The reason for Loki's time slipping is unknown, but on the first occasion, he had just been kicked through a Time Door opened using He Who Remains' TemPad by Sylvie as the Sacred Timeline started branching uncontrollably. O.B. suggested that it was caused by the timelines branching again and the Temporal Loom overloading. The second time that Loki began time slipping, it was after he was hit by the blast wave of the Temporal Loom's explosion. When the blast wave cleared, Loki was completely unharmed, but time slipping once again. He Who Remains later admitted that he'd paved the road to Loki gaining time slipping, just like he had paved the road for Loki and Sylvie to meet him at the Citadel at the End of Time.
While time slipping originally only transported Loki through time, it evolved to transporting him through space as well the second time that Loki experienced it, transporting Loki to the points and locations in the various branched timelines where his friends had all been reset to. Dr. A.D. Doug suggested that Loki was subconsciously controlling his time slipping since it was taking Loki to the people that he wanted to see. Loki eventually figured out how to consciously control it by focusing on the person that he wanted rather than the when, where or why.
Once Loki gained control of his time slipping, he was able to reverse time around him, appearing where he had been at that particular moment in time rather than appearing separate of himself, effectively traveling into his past self. Loki later learned how to do more with his time slipping such as pausing time and pulling himself and Sylvie out of the time stream. After seeing Loki time slipping, He Who Remains expressed surprise by the lack of control that Loki had over the various abilities that time slipping offered him, having thought that Loki would've figured out how to do more with it by the time that they met again.
History[]
Loki[]
"For All Time. Always"[]
After being kicked through a Time Door by Sylvie, Loki began experiencing time slipping, landing in the TVA of 400 years in the past.
"Ouroboros"[]
- "Mobius, to fix Loki's time slipping, you'll go out there and launch the Extractor which will pull Loki from the time stream before I need to close the blast doors. Loki, this timer is synched to the Loom. You'll stand by then prune yourself within moments after this turns green. Green means Mobius succeeded. Green means prune. If you're too late, you will be lost to time forever and Mobius will lose all of his skin. Okay, you've got about an hour. (The control room glass cracks) You've got about five minutes. Anyway, I'm gonna get everything ready."
- ―O.B. explains to Mobius and Loki the plan to fix Loki's time slipping.[src]
Having landed in the TVA of the past, a confused Loki was forced to flee until he returned to the present. After seeing a crack on the floor created by Loki during his escape, Loki realized that he had been in the past, but time slipped again before he could find Mobius and Hunter B-15. In the past, Loki visited the War Room and listened to a recording of He Who Remains and Ravonna Renslayer before being returned to the present.
Witnessing Loki time slipping several times, Mobius took him to see O.B. who recognized the time slipping, but had trouble believing it as it was supposed to be impossible to time slip in the TVA. Loki was sent back 400 years again where he and Mobius had a conversation with O.B. in two different time periods about time slipping and how to fix it. As his conversation with Mobius went on, O.B. slowly remembered his conversation with Loki in the past. O.B. revealed that Mobius would need to use a Temporal Aura Extractor on the Temporal Loom to pull Loki directly out of the time stream, building one for Mobius in the past at Loki's request that O.B. gave to Mobius in the present. While Mobius launched the device, Loki would have to prune himself using a Time Stick which would release Loki from time so that the Extractor could pull him into the present. If it didn't, Loki would be spaghettified instead while Mobius risked getting his skin peeled off launching the Extractor.
After Loki returned to the present, O.B. realized that the Temporal Loom was melting down due to the Sacred Timeline being unleashed with He Who Remains' death. O.B. theorized that the timeline branching again may have caused Loki's time slipping. Needing to lock down the blast doors until O.B. could figure out a way to fix the problem, Loki and Mobius were left with only five minutes to resynch the God of Mischief or he would be lost to time forever. However, Loki time slipped again, this time into the future where the Temporal Loom was going critical, and the TVA was being evacuated and he was unable to find a Time Stick to prune himself with. Mobius succeeded in launching the Extractor and, after encountering Sylvie emerging from an elevator, Loki was suddenly pruned from behind by an unknown individual at the last possible second. As Mobius struggled to reach the blast doors, the Extractor yanked a resynched Loki out of the time stream and he crashed into Mobius, sending them both flying through the closing blast doors.
"Heart of the TVA"[]
As the Temporal Loom melted down, the time slipping Loki rushed through the TVA searching for a Time Stick, eventually finding an elevator where Sylvie had been trapped by Miss Minutes. Seeing his past self, Loki put the pieces together and used a Time Stick to prune the other Loki from behind, allowing Mobius and Ouroboros to fix his time slipping in the past, revealing that it was actually Loki's own future self who had pruned the God of Mischief while he was time slipping. Loki promised a very confused Sylvie that what she had witnessed would eventually make sense.
"Science/Fiction"[]
After being hit by the blast wave from the Temporal Loom's explosion, Loki began experiencing time slipping again, much to his annoyance. Loki first time slipped to about a minute in the future where Loki witnessed himself taking a copy of the TVA Handbook off of a desk. When the TVA spaghettified, Loki escaped by time slipping away.
Loki's time slipping took him briefly to the branched timelines where his friends Casey, Hunter B-15, Mobius M. Mobius, and Ouroboros had been reset to their pre-TVA lives of Frank Morris, Dr. Willis, Don and Dr. A.D. Doug respectively. In addition, despite the TVA's apparent destruction, Loki briefly time slipped into the TVA's Time Theater. Doug, a science fiction writer and theoretical physics professor, suggested that Loki was subconsciously controlling his time slipping this time which had evolved to transport Loki through time as well as space. However, Loki's humorous attempts to control or to even trigger his time slipping failed, and Doug suggested the alternative plan of using the collective temporal aura of everyone who was present when the Temporal Loom exploded to discern the exact moment and place in time that Loki needed to travel back to in order to prevent the explosion. After giving Doug the TVA Handbook to build a TemPad, Loki time slipped to Don's house where Doug joined him using a Time Door after spending 19 months building his TemPad. Loki was subsequently able to use the Time Door to travel to each branched timeline and gather his friends.
As reality broke down from the destruction of the Temporal Loom, Loki suddenly time slipped back in time to moments earlier and then back to Sylvie's arrival at the Doug's workshop, having managed to control his time slipping at last. Loki finally realized that controlling his time slipping was not about focusing on the event that he wanted to go back to, but the person. Declaring that he could rewrite the story, Loki successfully time slipped back to before the Temporal Loom's explosion by focusing on Ouroboros.
"Glorious Purpose"[]
- "How did you know?"
"I know about the slipping? And who do you think paved that road? Any guesses? Survey says..."
"He Who Remains."
"Bingo! Here you were, slipping through time. Thinking you were, you were sticking it to the system. Gonna beat the man. And then... Whoop! Here he is." - ―Loki and He Who Remains.[src]
To be added