Don't know if it's a separate question (I haven't seen the show/movies), but is that text(?) under the cross on the right related to the Infinity Stones, or is it perhaps another very rare document/item?

@BruceWayne - in this slightly higher quality image you can see the writing on the card. It's along the lines of "Evidence... Lot of (perhaps 'or') early 19(?)... Baseball cards... APB-(?)00"

Is it notable that they've got multiple copies of every Infinity Stone - except for the Soul Stone, which they apparently have none of? I count 7 Time (of course that'd be the most common one here), 6 Reality, 3 Power, 2 Space, and 2 Mind (might be off a bit on some counts due to poor lighting), but no Soul Stones.

For that matter, why do they keep the Infinity Stones around so carelessly? They may have no power there, but if someone grabbed some and went off to the universe as a whole, couldn't they cause a ton of problems? Their time travel is all well and good, but if they had to confront someone with a Time Stone who knew about their existence, wouldn't that be a bit of an inconvenience?

@Adamant You might be right in-universe, but out-of-universe this is a huge reveal. It'd be one thing to have the Infinity Stones in a bank vault, glass case, or the Timekeepers' chambers, but having them in the desk drawer of an unimportant underling means that Loki and the audience simultaneously have to drastically re-frame their view of the TVA's power compared to the MCU thus far. We've seen so little of the TVA, perhaps the "inconvenience" is honestly trivial enough to warrant that degree of carelessness, but either way I can't imagine they'd easily give up that scene and shot.

Lots of question re. TVA... Why are they all human(oid), why is so much content so earth centric (disasters they reference, production design etc.). I know they sprinkle in references to Titan and Asgard, but the galaxy, let alone the universe in the context of all of time is huge right? And that's what they are claiming authority over... I'm guessing the answer to this will be a reveal later in the series

Note that the pictured collection is only a subset of the stones in TVA possession. "Some of the guys use them as paperweights." Perhaps the Soul Stone is favored for the purpose of holding down papers.

Remember that the Soul Stone is the only one that you can’t just take for yourself. It demands a sacrifice.

@LamarLatrell They're all human(oid) because all the ones we've met are clones created specifically for timekeeping on Earth. Presumably in the apparently infinite space of the TVA, there are other sections that handle other planets, populated by clones that appear to be of the species that live there.

"if someone grabbed some and went off to the universe as a whole, couldn't they cause a ton of problems?" An infinity stone is only powerful in the universe it comes from. All of the stones in that drawer have been confiscated from branch time lines, so would only be useful in that same branch time line. But the TVA trims those branch time lines so they no longer exist. Those stones are no more useful than paperweights.

@darthpseudonym, ok, that's consistent enough for me to stop thinking too hard about it 👍. The production design, while fun, is still a sticking point, but I can handwave that away with some form of 'everyone sees what makes sense to them'. Loki sees a bumbling bureaucracy, 'big brother' earth (represented perhaps unfairly by the trope of unpleasant bespectacled librarians and so on) as opposed to Asgard which he will naturally hold in a higher esteem ... (Or whatever 😂)

What? No sun glasses? No neuralyzer?!? I'm...disappointed. :-(

@tobyink Grab a stone that comes from a branch in 2050, travel back to 1950. Should still work, since the "split" hasn't (not) happened yet. More importantly, the TVA employees are well trained, and already have enough power to disregard the infinity stones, and the non-TVA-employees are mostly getting erased from existence. Who's going to grab them and go of back to the universe?

@tobyink That's not correct in the logic of Endgame. When they took the Power Stone they created a new branch (Thanos invading MCU earth definitely is a big change), nevertheless the stone was working in the main timeline. So if the stones work in both the past and the future of other timelines, then they are working basically always.

@tobyink That's the rules for Infinity Stones in the Marvel comics. In the movies Infinity Gems from other timelines will still work.

@RBarryYoung Except that in at least one case, someone took the Soul Stone without a sacrifice - At the end of Endgame, the gauntlet with all the stones in it passed through several hands. Sure, Tony sacrificed the person he loved the most (himself) to take it from Thanos, but a bunch of other people had their hands on it - Hulk, Spider-Man, Hawkeye, Black Panther I think, Captain Marvel, Captain America, and none of them had to sacrifice anyone. (I guess they all sacrificed Tony? But I don't think any of them loved him enough for that to really count.)

@DarrelHoffman That's true, they never explain that. Perhaps that rule only applies on Vormir and on the sacred timeline it's always on Vormir or with Thanos/Avengers or destroyed. And thus, when Stones are confiscated from Variants (mostly Loki's) they never have the Soul Stone because the Vairants never had the chance to steal it from someone else and wouldn't be willing/able to make the sacrifice at Vormir either.

Alternatively. maybe the TVA use the Soul Stone(s?) to determine what the one true Sacred Timeline is? I guess we'll find out. After all they didn't put this Easter egg in that big reveal accidentally, sooner or later they'll explain it (though maybe not in-world).

@DarrelHoffman Just saw episode four. I am now fairly certain why there were no Soul Stones in that drawer, but it would be a spoiler to reveal it. However if you watch episode four closely, you should notice the same clue that I did.

@RBarryYoung Actually, if you watch the ending credits montage, you can see one shot showing several of them being used as paperweights. At least they're there in Episodes 3 and 4, I'll have to go back and look if they've been there the whole time...

@RBarryYoung Wait - I take it back, those paperweights were Mind Stones (yellow) not Soul Stones (orange).

@DarrelHoffman Ahh, but there are soul stones depicted in episode four ...