Thread by @mrzelcas

once again, the sacred timeline isn't one reality/universe (they use that interchangeably a lot). it's a term to describe the select realities with the same baseline (but with slight differences) that were allowed to exist because they all followed the same path

it was shown in episode 1:
"Long ago, there was a vast multiversal war. Countless unique timelines battled each other for supremacy,...But then, Time-Keepers emerged, bringing peace by reorganizing the multiverse into a single timeline, the Sacred Timeline."

and HWR echoed it in ep.6
"he was a scientist and he discovered that there were universes stacked on top of his own...The peace between realities…erupted into all-out war, each variant fighting to preserve their universe and annihilate the others"

the only difference is that he tells them that he weaponized alioth to destroy other timelines that didn't fit the timeline that would produce him. timeline = flow of time.

however, he did keep those realities/universes that followed the same timeline/script/path whatever you want to call it. and that's why we get so many different loki variants

this is also from ep.1. basically this is a metaphor. the tree is a metaphor for tst, but if you look closely, this 'tree' has numerous starting points. it doesn't have just one stem with branches, but various, that were allowed to grow until they started producing branches

this poster also shows numerous strands all being tied into one single path = tst. one of them is red bc it's supposed to be a 'bad reality' and is likely meant to be pruned/destroyed by alioth. this is meant to ref. how tst even came to be

and yes, that previous poster is supposed to show the creation of tst, because the branching of the tst is otherwise depicted like this:
-right side
- various starting points for branches
-the 'main' path is still going

even Kate said it. Lokis all live in different realities and when those realities started to branch and went off the path/TST their realities got destroyed

this is also what she said about this whole multiverse issue in another interview

because tst consists of so many different realities, the variants also look different. not because loki is a shapeshifter, but because that's how multiverse works. don't tell me that this lil guy is a shapeshifter who turned into a teacup for the lolz at some point

also michael said this:

"So there are infinite instances of time always occurring at once."
which also matches with HWR's explanation of multiverse
"he discovered that there were universes stacked on top of his own. At the same time other versions of us were learning the same thing...they made contact"

and also guess how those guys from other universes made contact? using a timedoor
(bc I saw some ppl claim that the tva isn't travelling through different realities/universes, but just through time of one reality)

HWR begs to disagree with them tho lol

also this:
basically, parallel universes/realities that differ from each other are totally ok as long as they follow the same path/time. but the moment something happens, like for example michael declining to do an interview, that's a red alert

in mcu canon, that would mean that reality/universe would be branded as bad, it could produce Kang so HWR decided it had to be destroyed.
Sylvie's reality existed in harmony with numerous realities within TST for years. her nexus even wasn't that she was a woman

but something else that happened when she was a child. that's when HWR her reality went off the time/path of TST and it had to be destroyed.

TST is meant to resemble a rope because it consists of numerous realities and we were shown that time and time again

they're pruning branches because realities that follow the same path/time are ok, but the moment something starts branching and if it branches past certain point that branch could actually become a new timeline/path of time which is a huge nope for HWR

by "isolating the timeline" he didn't mean he destroyed all realities and there's now only one. he isolated one path of time.
the realities/universes that followed the path of time that were deemed okay by hwr continued existing within tst, bc like hwr said only "some" of his

variants were bad. and yes, hwr used realities and universes interchangeably when describing stuff to loki and sylvie so that means they're the same thing (parallel realities/universe), timeline is a path, a flow of time

and the Sacred Timeline is the only path/flow of time that doesn't produce Kang and is considered the favored path, thus "Sacred"

he literally says "all I had to do was manage the flow of time"

tl dr: The Sacred Timeline consists of numerous different realities/universes. It's a favored path of time . Different variants, different Lokis all hail from different realities within The Sacred Timeline