kingofcards | [ooc] timeline!

♣ Please note that the entire universe seems to operate on a sliding timeline and the only hard and fast date we actually have is "1984," so this is subject to change, especially since the opening scene of the second movie directly contradicts the extended version of the last scene of the first movie. TRUST NO ONE.

♥ For the sake of clarity, I'm roughly saying that the bulk of the first movie takes place in 2014, but let's never actually reference the year so we can attempt to retain our sanity. Assume all years used are approximate/sliding.

♠ Everything post-NYSM is based on the idea that Thaddeus' repeated claim of "18 months" is the most accurate measure of time passed since the first movie and that it begins around the time of his incarceration, ergo NYSM2 ends approximately 21 months after NYSM ended.

♦ As much as possible, this is derived from canon and related materials (cut scenes, interviews, commentary). There are a couple of points that are headcanon only, but I think only regarding Danny's personal relationships. Anything regarding Dylan has been discussed with Laine.

1971/1972: Dylan Shrike born (in France?)

1984: Lionel Shrike drowns (?), Daniel Fleischman born (not in France)

1989: Danny starts playing around with a deck of cards he finds in his dad's study, Taylor Swift is born

1996: Danny's parents get divorced.¹ Probably around this time, give or take a couple years, Merritt McKinney's glory days come to an end and he's audited by the IRS after being framed by his own twin brother/manager.

1998 - 2002: Danny is in high school performing as Magicolio and not getting laid.

2003 to the present: Danny strikes out on his own, develops his own act, a new identity, and a quiet ~~obsession~~ fascination with the idea of the Eye. At some point, he settles in Chicago. Over the following years, he runs through a number of assistants, including Rebecca (fits through trap doors) and Henley Reeves, who eventually leaves the act for one of her own. He does not admit he has feelings for her, though he does at one point give her a black rose before a show in what seems to have been an attempt to cheer her up for some reason. He establishes himself in the magic world as J. Daniel Atlas and gains a reputation and a following. He still cyberstalks Henley.

2007/2008: Lula, who is pretty new in the magic world, attempts a trick for which she is ill-prepared and a rabbit suffers for it. This is about a year and a half into her career.

March 2013: The original Four Horsemen receive their invitations and meet at a New York apartment (March 29th). Danny's is on the tarot card The Lovers. Per the deleted scenes, Danny believes he recognizes this apartment as the one in a poster he has of Lionel Shrike. Given the plans they made (using Shrike's rehearsal space at Five Pointz, the meeting place at the Shrike tree) and the Shrike materials in the basement, his guess is eventually confirmed. Various interviews and materials indicate that Henley is the brains behind putting together much of the gimmicks and other stuff in the blueprints, the engineer of the group, although anything big for the stage she probably just oversaw the production of.

2013: The Horsemen train together, recruiting Tressler as an investor and making use of his money and ego to create everything they need for their acts, including materials Tressler doesn't know about and which will eventually be used against him. They prep their locations and practice, practice, practice.

February/March 2014: The Horsemen perform their three acts, with New Orleans on Mardi Gras on the 28th of February (???? this is not our universe oh god what if this all takes place in the future what if the first one was actually set in 2017) and ending in Five Pointz, Queens, where Thaddeus Bradley is arrested

early to mid February: The Horsemen hit up Paris, program Étienne, prep hardcore, and rob an armored money truck headed to Credit Républicain de Paris

Las Vegas: The Horsemen steal 3.2 billion Euros and instantly make a name for themselves, going from a group Tressler had to pull people in to see to one that sells out in under a minute. (Although, to be fair, that speed might also have something to do with the fact that their New Orleans audience is pre-selected. Still, it's good for their reputation regardless.)

en route to New Orleans: DANNY IS BAD AT MENTALISM ON PURPOSE OKAY PLEASE REMEMBER THAT THIS WAS A RUSE*

New Orleans: The tracking devices are not because Atlas is paranoid, but a way to play on the known fact that Danny is a control freak, and to be able to use the tracking devices as misdirection against the FBI, presumably as conceived by Dylan himself and outlined in their instructions. Danny probably says that it doesn't seem like such a bad idea. No one is sure if he's joking.

New York: The group sets up the warehouse as a giant rabbit/mirror box, steal an FBI-issued vehicle, plant a cadaver and papers in it that they got from an FBI truck in New Orleans (the papers not the cadaver), commandeer a bus to which they attach said vehicle, leave Jack to misdirect the FBI while the others set up the bus and car, while he burns unimportant papers and leads them on a chase so they can get the real papers from the fake car before it for real blows up.

NOTE: The Horsemen must assume that, if the FBI know about the apartment, then there's a very real chance it has been bugged. Since they can't know for certain, they must behave as if it is a given, and everything after the point at which Danny stomps out the phone becomes a performance. ("Stick to the plan," he tells Jack. "Stay here and burn it all." But clearly this is not the plan at all, and they're counting on the possibility that someone is listening in and will therefore expect whatever papers Jack has to be important, since they "need" to be burned, because they need the FBI to want Jack's papers to lead them to the warehouse to send them on a wild goose chase so that Jack can go back for the real safe and set up Thaddeus uninterrupted. Thirty years, Dylan spent on this shit. Thirty. Years.)

Also they have a fucking elaborate light show and visuals set up that apparently are really well programmed and basically run themselves so they can appear to fly off the roof. Also also at some point they had money with their faces printed on it???

somewhere out there, Lula is like fuck. yes. fUcK YES

carousel?? magIC?

not long after, but probably a couple weeks?: Dylan goes to France to see Alma and leaves the Horsemen temporarily to their own devices, having secured them a hiding place (why does Danny have his own place, why are Merritt and Jack sharing a bunk bed, I'm not entirely clear what's going on) and promised that the Eye has a plan

summer 2014: Bradley's case is processed and he's put in jail. the trial is quick and because there's so much obvious planted evidence it was probably easier for him to plead guilty and accept a sentence than contest it and drag it out for years, otherwise this shit would seriously not be over by the second movie

spring 2015: Henley quits the group, either due to a loss of faith in the Eye or a complication in her relationship with Danny (as implied by Lula) or both.² Regardless of the reason, it's an extremely touchy subject for Danny. (I would bet money that, around this same time, Alma breaks up with Dylan because long distance just isn't working out.)

summer 2015: Dylan sends the FBI on some wild goose chases. Danny's an antsy fuck and starts trying to figure out how to contact the Eye on his own. lots of trips around the city by himself and research, which eventually only helps to draw attention to him and his ego for people who are looking for him. LIKE LULA

November 2015: Danny finally deciphers what he thinks is a path to the Eye's New York headquarters while Dylan puts together the pieces of the Octa plan.

Danny contacts "the Eye."

Probably within the week, Chase shows up (following information taken from Danny's phone when he visited "the Eye") and hypnotizes Merritt, who sends all kinds of information to Mabry.

December 2015: Sometime in the next few weeks, Danny returns to his apartment to find Lula there, but she takes off before he can do anything about it. He receives a text message from Dylan that literally just says "text message." I don't know, y'all. I guess it's a signal to meet up later. He meets up with Jack and Merritt and then they head into see Dylan (oh my god and I just realized they were waiting for him to arrive before they went in, y'all this is why he thinks he's the leader, please). Lula is already there with Dylan and a bunch of secret blueprints. It's unclear when she met him exactly, if she was called there by Dylan and decided to introduce herself first or if she went to him after leaving Danny's. Either way, the gang gets to work prepping for the Octa conference.

Sidenote: They've been rehearsing and prepping for a while before Lula shows up, without actually knowing what for or when they'll get to put it to use.

Sidenote 2: We're probably in the last week of December now. I'm gonna try and number the days here for clarity from this point.

Day 1: Shortly after, possibly/probably within the same week, the Horsemen hit the Octa conference, where they attempt to out Owen Case for selling the privacy of his customers. Instead, their hijacking is hijacked, Dylan is revealed as the fifth Horseman, and Jack is revealed to still be alive. In their attempt to escape, the Horsemen take the wrong exit, where they're hit by a combination of pulsing lights, binaural beats, and audio cues to hypnotize them into a sleep. While they're knocked out, Walter Mabry takes the unconscious horsemen by plane to Macau. As far as he's concerned, hijinx ensue but it's really just creepy and gross.

Day 2: Travel to Macau takes most of a day, though Walter has his own private jet, at least, which certainly speeds up the process.

Day 3: The Horsemen wake up when they're dumped into a restaurant where Merritt is reunited, unwillingly, with his twin brother Chase, who forces them to head to the Sands hotel, where Mabry is waiting with music playing, trying to do card tricks. He re-kidnaps them. Like, he re-kidnaps them just so they can arrive to him looking cool, which he absolutely fails to do. In case you missed it, Mabry is a sociopath.

Mabry tells the Horsemen to retrieve a computer chip belonging to Octa or he'll kill them. Danny decides the time has come for him to make all the decisions, like a dick.

In the States, Dylan makes a deal with Thaddeus to get help finding his Horsemen.

Day 4: They go to Iong's, the oldest known magic shop. Danny orders several things, many of which are completely unnecessary, presumably in an effort to keep any real plan from Chase, who has accompanied them. Merritt lures his brother away and Danny uses this time to try to contact the Eye, not realizing that he is (and has been) talking to Mabry.

The Horsemen go over their plan in detail and practice their cardistry.

Day 5: The next day, they hit the casino to swap places with a South African gangster and his coterie in order to get in to see the chip before it's auctioned to the highest bidder.

BUFFY

CARD HEIST

Dylan goes to Iong's with Bradley and sees a mock-up of his father's safe. He also receives one of many watches his father had made by a fake company that's an anagram of the word ESCAPE because magicians think they're hilarious and clever.

That same night, Danny takes the card to a marketplace where he's supposed to meet up with an agent of the Eye. Instead he finds Dylan, tells him off, and then is surprised to find Mabry and his lackeys arrive and that his ego was his tripping point, because apparently someone didn't pay attention when studying Greek tragedies at school. Dylan steps in, gets Danny and the chip both out the door, and Danny finally understands that Dylan actually gives a shit about him/them.

Mabry abducts Dylan and, with the safe, heads to the river to meet his father, and then they throw Dylan into the water (in the safe) and drink tea.

The Horsemen arrive in the nick of time and Danny dives in to pull Dylan from the bottom of the river, where he is, having used his father's watch to get out of the safe but having lost consciousness in the process from a lack of oxygen. Jack realizes that part of the chip peels off, which they interpret as meaning it's fake. They all go to Iong's and also drink tea and form a plan and bond. Also, probably here, they finally uncover Dylan's identity.³ This is not shown in the film.

The Horsemen record and release a video on their YouTube channel and website (which tragically don't actually exist, even though that's such a logical marketing move?). In it, they threaten Mabry, though not by name, and announce their intentions to head to London for a big show.

Day 6: Presumably they stay up into the wee small hours, hashing out their plans, getting their equipment, and they and Li and his grandma all head to London on the first available plane. It's New Year's Eve.

The Horsemen perform their various acts, lulling Mabry and Tressler into thinking they know what's ahead so they step right into their trap.

New Year's 2016: The Horsemen triumphant~

Also New Year's but during the day/Day 7: The Horsemen go to Greenwich Conservatory to the Eye's secret headquarters. Dylan finds out the truth about Thaddeus and Lionel's friendship, and the Horsemen head through a door down a staircase into another vague and ambiguous ending.

June 2016: Lionsgate releases a summer movie set on New Year's Eve?

2018 (ish): we all get jossed

¹ Entirely personal conjecture based on intuition and Danny's behavior in a lot of situations, but it also adds to his position story-wise as Dylan's mirror (parental loss/abandonment of some kind at the age of 12).

² I wouldn't commit to anything until/unless we had a Henley of our own, especially since Danny's not fucking talking about it, but my general belief is that they tried to work their shit out — things ended so rosily in the first film! — but her slowly losing faith and his agitation at waiting and the fear that she was right to give up probably led to a lot of fights which ended whatever fragile relationship they'd managed to create, and which he probably refused to give an actual name to anyway which didn't exactly help in the faith department, and then that probably all coalesced. It's very possible he actually said she should leave instead of trying to talk her through her worries, because Danny is an idiot. That's my take, which is open to discussion. Or even threading for practice and emotions!

³ It seems highly likely that Danny guessed the truth long ago, but from different reactions in the movie, it also seems like he refrained from telling this part to the other Horsemen, probably out of respect for Shrike, whom he idolizes/eventually respect for Dylan/the deep-seated desire never to be wrong. At the point where they see the safe, Merritt is unclear on what Mabry would want with it. Danny's response is that "They must have Dylan. We don't have much time." He doesn't clarify this, but it indicates an understanding of the Shrike connection. When Shrike is quoted later, back at Iong's, it provides an opening, and we generally assume that, after making their choice and discovering the identity of Li and his grandmother, Dylan also admits to his true identity, leading to his eventually going by his real name.