In the Writers’ Room of the Gods, somewhere between Olympus, Valhalla, the Dreaming, and a dimension consisting entirely of screaming customer-service hold music, Loki was running late.
This was unusual only because time itself had originally been invented to inconvenience him personally.
Around the vast obsidian conference table sat more than three thousand gods, goddesses, demi-gods, storm spirits, underworld bureaucrats, retired fertility deities, extinct river guardians, forgotten household protectors, and one deeply confused medieval saint who had wandered in during the 14th century and never found the exit.
Above them glowed the production slate:
Reality – Season 12,487
Earth Arc: America, Late Empire Period
The room buzzed with nervous energy.
A thunder god sharpened a spear.
A Roman deity responsible for bureaucracy rearranged stacks of compliance scrolls.
The Goddess of Probability chain-smoked silently beside a mountain of failed predictions.
At the head of the table sat Loki.
Sharp suit.
Crooked grin.
Coffee mug reading:
Make mortals believable again
Beside him rested The Book.
A gigantic leather-bound manuscript whose pages rewrote reality the moment ink touched parchment.
A junior storm god cleared his throat.
“We have notes from Standards.”
Loki sighed.
“Again?”
The storm god shuffled papers nervously.
“They say the America storyline has become implausible.”
The room murmured.
This had become a recurring complaint.
Standards had been uneasy ever since the episode where a presidential legal team held a press conference beside a landscaping business wedged between an adult bookstore and a crematorium.
Loki pointed toward the wall of awards.
Thousands of trophies glowed softly in the dark:
Best use of accidental symbolism in a civilisational decline arc
Four Seasons Total Landscaping
Outstanding contribution to medical horror-comedy
Injecting Disinfectant?
Best improvised authoritarian dialogue
Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.
Excellence in weather-based reality distortion
Sharpie Hurricane Path
Best failed coup with costuming
January 6 – The Musical
Loki spread his hands.
“You said the same thing before those episodes.”
A Greek muse rubbed her temples.
“Yes, but now the audience can no longer distinguish satire from journalism.”
From the far corner, the skeletal Algorithm God hissed approvingly.
Its body was made entirely of engagement metrics, rage-clicks, push notifications, and unpaid moderation labour.
“Engagement remains excellent,” it whispered.
“Faith metrics remain catastrophic.”
At this, the room darkened slightly.
That old wound again.
Once, long ago, the gods had fed upon belief.
Prayer.
Worship.
Sacrifice.
Temples.
Fear of thunder.
Fear of death.
Fear of invisible things in forests.
Then humans invented telescopes.
Microscopes.
Antibiotics.
Peer review.
Satellites.
Carbon dating.
And, fatally, the scientific method.
The old gods panicked.
Entire pantheons collapsed within centuries.
Minor weather gods disappeared almost overnight.
Several volcano deities were wiped out by geology.
The fertility gods survived longer than expected but mostly through wine festivals and unfortunate tattoos.
Finally, after decades of emergency meetings and catastrophic downsizing, the Department of Worship merged with the Department of Content.
That was when Loki saved them.
He discovered something extraordinary.
Humans no longer needed to believe things.
They only needed to react to them.
Outrage worked even better than prayer.
Fear lasted longer than devotion.
And satire…
Satire generated belief and disbelief simultaneously.
It was limitless energy.
The old gods once fed on worship.
The new gods fed on engagement.
Faith had been useful.
Outrage was renewable.
The storm god continued reading.
“This week’s episode involves a shooting incident at an elite political-media dinner.”
“Good tension,” said Loki.
“Guests dive under tables.”
“Strong visuals.”
“Secret Service evacuates the leader.”
“Standard.”
“And then…”
The storm god hesitated.
“Yes?”
“The leader immediately uses the incident to justify building a giant fortified ballroom.”
Silence.
A Babylonian moon god slowly lowered his drink.
“A ballroom?”
“A secure ballroom.”
“With?”
The storm god checked the notes.
“Missile-resistant steel. Blast-proof glass. Drone-proof ceilings. Emergency medical facilities. Hardened underground structures. Bomb shelters.”
Thor frowned.
“That is not a ballroom.”
“No,” said Athena quietly. “That is a panic room wearing a tuxedo.”
Loki smiled.
“The branding tested beautifully.”
A minor god of architecture raised a trembling hand.
“Could we perhaps call it a command bunker?”
“No.”
“A continuity-of-government facility?”
“No.”
“A hardened executive fortress complex?”
Loki dipped his pen into ink distilled from executive dysfunction.
“Ballroom.”
“But why?”
“Because,” said Loki, “humans will tolerate authoritarian infrastructure if you hang chandeliers inside it.”
The room fell silent.
Slowly, Loki began writing.
Following the gunfire, the leader declared the tragedy proved the urgent need for a magnificent secure ballroom.
The manuscript glowed.
Reality shifted.
A goddess of wisdom whispered:
“No one will believe that.”
Loki looked up.
“They don’t need to believe it.”
He smiled thinly.
“They only need to argue about it until the next episode.”
The Algorithm God shuddered with pleasure.
“Optimal.”
A young demigod frowned.
“But surely the audience will eventually realise this is absurd?”
At this, something strange happened.
Loki stopped smiling.
The room noticed immediately.
Even the thunder gods went quiet.
Loki leaned back slowly.
Then, very softly, he said:
“I need to tell you something.”
The room froze.
“I stopped writing the America arc years ago.”
Silence.
A chair scraped somewhere in the darkness.
“What?”
Loki stared at The Book.
“I make edits sometimes. Small adjustments. Timing. Symbolism. Visual callbacks.”
The room waited.
“But the major storylines…”
He looked up.
“The humans write those themselves now.”
The room erupted.
“That’s impossible!”
“They’re mortals!”
“No species would destabilise itself for ratings!”
The Algorithm God shifted uneasily.
Loki pointed toward the glowing screens lining the walls.
Endless human broadcasts flickered across them:
- talking heads shouting over one another
- doomscrolling feeds
- algorithmic outrage
- war footage beside advertisements for mattresses
- conspiracy spirals
- politicians selling apocalypse as branding
- commentators debating whether reality itself was staged
The gods watched in horror.
“They reward the worst episodes,” Loki whispered.
The room fell silent again.
A small forgotten river spirit spoke carefully.
“So… who writes the scripts now?”
Loki looked toward the shadows.
There, quietly unnoticed beside a mountain of discarded production notes, sat a penguin.
Small.
Still.
Watching.
Taking notes.
Loki sighed.
“I mostly copy from him.”
The penguin closed his notebook slowly.
Then he spoke for the first time in centuries.
“The humans once feared the gods would destroy the world.”
He adjusted his spectacles.
“In the end, the gods merely struggled to keep up with the writing.”
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And the God of satire quietly slashed his wrists.After synchronising his sundial with the Time Lord.And leaving a moving goodbye note to the penguin.
Chillingly true observation – “humans will tolerate authoritarian infrastructure if you hang chandeliers inside it.