Fanfic / All Mixed Up!

All Mixed Up! is an Odd Squad fanfiction written by lilac-kat.

The story follows Odd Squad Precinct 13579 as they face a new threat in the form of a new villainess known as Mariana Mag, an aquarium owner whose specialty is anagrams. As she begins turning various town citizens and various agents into different objects, it falls on Otto to save everyone, find out the truth behind Carol's twin brother Carlos, and stop Mariana before it's too late.

It is loosely connected to the Ships Ahoy! 'verse, but is not connected to Olive's Last Partner before it.

Also has a sequel, Patterns of the Past, which follows Oprah meeting up with one of her previous bosses, Olesya.

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This fanfic contains examples of:

• A Bloody Mess: Oscarbot 18 is turned into a three-piece kitchen cabinet unit by Mariana Mag, and for added effect, purple goo oozes out of the unit's doors.
• The Ace: Whereas Olive is this to mathematics, Otto is this to word problems. He manages to write seventy words out of the term "scientific method" in under two minutes, and by that point Olive refuses to let him touch the book as she tells him in a lighthearted manner that he's taken away too much of her self-esteem.
• Adaptational Explanation: This fanfic has Odd Squad as a whole serve as a welcome committee for new citizens who move into town — if not to be courteous, then to let newcomers know whom their local Odd Squad is and how to contact them. In Precinct 13579's case, Olive and Otto visit Mariana Mag, a woman who recently moved to town, at her new aquarium.
• Affection-Hating Kid: It's made clear that Oprah doesn't like hugs, as when Mariana Mag hugs her in Chapter 11, she winces and tries to wriggle out of it.
• Aliens Speaking English: Although they don't appear to speak much, Chapter 7 has Olive and Otto interact with a Tiggle who substitutes for a tube operator.
• And Then I Said: Otto and Oscar tell Olive about what happened while she was transformed, but only the part where they turned everyone back to normal is shown.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Carlos delivers a pretty effective one to Mariana Mag just before she goes to attack Otto.
  Carlos: This isn't who you are. Remember when you used to visit me all those years ago? You were so happy, so hopeful, so young, so...innocent. Where did you go?
  Mariana Mag: But- Carlos, it's me! I'm right here! I came back, like I always said I would.
  Carlos: But at what cost?
• A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Mariana Mag appears to be nice and harmless at first and introduces herself as a new citizen of the town who is in charge of a new aquarium, but she is later revealed to be the Big Bad of the story.
  Otto: I mean, what could you have against Odd Squad anyway, if you were so nice to us before?
  Mariana Mag: Nice? Ha! That wasn't being nice. That was acting, flattery, and toleration.
• Benevolent Boss: To celebrate the opening of the FTS Aquarium, Oprah decides to give every one of her agents the day off and take all of them to visit it.
• Be Yourself: Mariana Mag has words and language as her expertise, and while employed with Odd Squad, she found that it was a way to express herself and be unique. However, when Oprah takes that uniqueness away from her and forces her to love and appreciate math like everyone else, it becomes her Start of Darkness.
  Mariana Mag: I thought Ms. O wanted me on the Squad for who I was, not for someone I could never be.
• Big "NO!": Mariana Mag gives a big long "no" when she's transformed into her own anagrammed object.
• Big "YES!": Otto gives one of these when Mariana Mag offers a free-of-charge visit to her aquarium on Wednesday.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: Coffee-flavored juice boxes are apparently a thing, and Oprah orders Otto to get three of them so she, him, and Olive can all stay awake.
• Blatant Lies: As Otto and Oprah are conversing about Carlos, Mariana Mag shows up behind them and asks them who Carlos is. Both of them, as well as Oscar, make up excuses about who he is, and then when she asks them if they're enjoying their aquarium visit, they begin making up lies about that as well. However, Mariana isn't convinced, and Oscar cracks as he explains to her what's been happening.
  • Later on, Mariana is on the giving end of this as Otto confronts her about her actions. She's shown acting rather shifty and eventually decides to make a run for it.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Chapter 8 has Otto reciting Olive's "Let's go" catchphrase. It would be lampshaded by Oscar if he had the heart to tell him whose catchphrase it was.
• Bystander Syndrome: Olive sees Otto being attacked by a shark and unable to breathe, and all she can do is stand there for a few seconds before eventually going to help her partner out.
  • Instead of trying to escape, or fight the enemy advancing towards her in Chapter 9, Oprah is left shocked and confronts her verbally, leaving her a free and open target to be attacked.
• Cassandra Truth: In Chapter 8, Olaf's face goes purple as he points at Mariana Mag and begins confronting her. As he has a very limited vocabulary, though, he can't communicate his judgement very well, which doesn't work out in his favor when Oprah scolds him and tells him to take a recently-victimized Oren back to Headquarters. However, Olaf's outburst gives the more vocabulary-proficient Otto enough leverage to confront Mariana.
• Choosing Neutrality: When it came to both World Wars, Odd Squad chose to remain neutral since, as children, they didn't see the point of the wars. However, it comes at a cost of not being able to contact precincts in the Central Powers countries affected by the wars unless it was in number coding.
• Circling Monologue: Otto begins circling Mariana Mag as he lays out his judgement and suspicions out on the table and confronts her about her coverup and what she's hiding.
• Code Red: Oprah activates Code Emerald, an intruder alert, when she finds out that Oscarbot 18 and Obi have both become victims of Mariana Mag.
• Color Failure: Oprah's dark-skinned face turns pale when Oscar confirms that whomever the culprit is has been turning people into various objects.
• Conflicting Loyalty: Seeing Otto and Oscar fight Mariana Mag, Carlos struggles with whom he wants to protect — the two agents he's barely known, or the one hellbent-on-revenge agent to whom she's his Only Friend. When Mariana manages to hit Otto with the stun gun and prepares to anagram him, Carlos stops her from doing so and tries to get her to stop attacking Otto and Oscar.
• Cornered Rattlesnake: As Mariana Mag spills her backstory to Otto, she menacingly advances towards him until he's backed up against the railing. He starts thinking of how her belt might hold the key to defeating her, but eventually decides to forgo that idea and go full Leeroy Jenkins as he charges at her.
• Creepy Monotone: Downplayed. It's not entirely monotonic, but Carlos's voice is described as being a more haunting and more depressed version of Lord Rectangle's voice, which is fitting considering that he thinks he's been long forgotten by Odd Squad.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Odd Squad has many traditional methods of solving cases. These are good when the cases involve mathematical means or properties, but have absolutely no effect on cases that involve anything word-based. When Mariana Mag begins striking out and attacking most everyone in the town, Precinct 13579 in particular can't figure out that she's the culprit, nor can they figure out how the items that her victims are turned into correlate with the victims themselves.
• Cute Kitten: Oscar is turned into a basket full of orange kittens by Mariana Mag at the end of Chapter 9.
• Deliberate Injury Gambit: Mariana Mag willingly lets herself get struck with oddness in order to lure Precinct 13579 to her so they'll take her to their Headquarters like any run-of-the-mill client and she can infiltrate it. It works, and she continues her reign of terror by attacking Odd Squad agents as well as Oscar's Oscarbots. The end of Chapter 10a reveals that the oddness is entirely fake, but the fact she willingly attacked herself with it remains all the same.
• Deliberately Cute Child: Played for laughs with Olive in Chapter 4, who puts on a pleading expression to try and convince Otto to help her with her puzzle book. Otto's response is to laugh and begin solving it for her.
• Delicious Distraction: Mariana Mag throws in fish to distract Diesel and get him away from Olive and Otto so they can swim to the surface safely.
• Didn't See That Coming: Otto decides to charge at Mariana Mag even though she's armed with a stun gun and dangerous. She's so caught off guard that it leaves him ample opportunity to press the Backspace key on her keyboard, which turns Oscar back to normal.
  There are two things you should never do when you are cornered. One is to give in to your panic and let it control you. The other is act on impulse and hope for the best. Unfortunately, no one had ever told either piece of advice to Otto. Which is why he found himself charging at top speed at a dangerous madwoman with a gun, screaming bloody murder at the top of his lungs.
• Disconnected by Death: A non-lethal variant — Mariana Mag manages to attack Oprah while she's on the phone with Otto and Oscar, and when the Director gets turned into her anagrammed object, the line goes dead.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Mariana Mag attacks dozens of people — town citizens, including villains, and Odd Squad agents — in her rage just to get revenge on one agent, something that Carlos points out.
  Carlos: You've taken the livelihoods of dozens of innocent people, all to get revenge on just one person. And even then, why revenge?
• Distaff Counterpart: Mariana Mag is similar to Odd Todd, but only in backstory and how the Face–Heel Turn was made, and she makes it clear that she's very different from Odd Todd in other means.
  • While they're both technically genderless, Carlos serves as sort of Spear Counterpart to Carol.
• Don't Be Ridiculous: Oprah says this when Otto hands her the Anagram-inator and asks her if she's sure it's morally right to destroy it, then demonstrates by turning Mariana Mag back to normal.
• Dwindling Party: Most everyone in the town is turned into an object of some sort, up to and including the villains. Precinct 13579's agents end up being safe...until Mariana Mag manages to successfully get into their Headquarters and begins attacking them one by one until Otto is one of the few left standing.
  Slowly, the five agents looked at one another. In that moment they all knew that no one was safe any longer. Whatever the cause of these disappearances was, it had to be figured out. Now.
• Easily Forgiven: The Main 4 are quite forgiving towards Mariana Mag for what she's done, letting her visit Odd Squad and Carlos and even letting her run her aquarium again, much to her surprise.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Oscar has a frustrated outburst regarding the case in Chapter 9 that makes Otto realize why people are being turned into personalized objects.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Subverted. Mariana Mag is fine with turning anyone and everyone into their own personalized anagrammed object, but the one person she refused to attack was Otto. She came to see him as a nice kid whom she never wanted to see hurt — but it's entirely past-tense, as he manages to sniff her out and she eventually sets her sights on destroying him.
  • Played straight in the case of Mariana's aquarium. While it being sponsored by the "French Toddlers' Sphere" is a front, the Family Business of owning aquariums is very real, and Mariana doesn't want to lose all of the marine life that she and her father have cared for over the years.
• Everyone Hates Mathematics: Inverted. Oprah enjoys math, and by extension likes Carol, because numbers never lie, while on the opposite side of the coin, she despises words and hates Carlos, and has a mistrust of them because they can be mixed up, manipulated, and used against people for personal gain, which is a lesson she learned from Olga back when she tried to tell her that numbers had nothing to do with her fruit going missing. This is a major factor into Mariana Mag's Face–Heel Turn as well as her character as a whole.
  • Played straight with Mariana Mag, however, as she loves anagrams but despises math, and her being an Odd Squad agent, the dislike created a whole host of problems for her.
• Evil Versus Evil: Mariana Mag doesn't just target the town's citizens — she also targets villains as well. To make matters worse, they're well aware of her presence, but they never considered the possibility that she would attack them instead of Odd Squad.
• Exact Eavesdropping: While transformed into a personalized anagrammed object, Oscar overhears Mariana Mag's backstory, meaning he's well informed on her intentions and motive.
  Oscar: Quite a story, Agent Ocean. Afraid I can't sympathize, though.
• Excellent Judge of Character: As the story progresses, Otto becomes more and more suspicious of Mariana Mag and her aquarium, noting that something seems off with her. He turns out to be right on the money, and what's more, he eventually ends up being the only person left who's able to stop Mariana Mag.
• Face–Heel Turn: Mariana Mag went through one of these, as she used to be known as Agent Ocean but was kicked off Odd Squad for preferring anagrams, and problems relating to them, over math. She eventually grew up and inherited her father's aquarium once she graduated from college, although it's clear her drive for Revenge hasn't died down any.
• Family Business: According to Mariana Mag, the FTS Aquarium was passed down to her by her father, and owning aquariums is something that runs in the family.
• Fantastically Indifferent: Olive goes through the tubes to get aboveground and finds herself in the middle of an aquarium tank. Her reaction is to look mildly surprised, produce the Snorkel-inator from her Hammerspace pocket, and fire it at her and Otto to give them snorkeling gear. She quickly changes her tune when a shark comes barrelling towards Otto and starts roughhousing with him.
• Foreshadowing: Otto's knowledge of anagrams and word problems comes in handy when he is the only one who hasn't been a victim of Mariana Mag's evildoings.
  • In Chapter 4, Olive remarks that she's never solved a puzzle book that didn't have math in it before, which foreshadows how word-related problems, such as anagrams, are completely out of Odd Squad's norm, as well as the norm of its agents.
• Framing Device: The story is a case of the same title that Oprah is reading out of boredom (except she's not — she's waiting for someone to come).
• Fun with Acronyms: The "FTS" part of the name of Mariana Mag's aquarium stands for French Toddlers' Sphere, which is, according to Mariana herself, a company from France that focuses on child development. The entire name sounds weird to any casual reader at first, until it's revealed that it's merely a front and serves as clever Foreshadowing when it comes to Mariana's past.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Mariana Mag is quite skilled in the realm of gadgetry and manages to not only repair her own lifeline with ease, but also build an alphabet keypad to control it.
• Genius Ditz: Otto is a Cloudcuckoolander who can be a bit naive and dimwitted at times, but his knowledge of word problems and anagrams is nearly unrivaled.
• Good Wears White: Mariana Mag wears a white cotton dress following her resurrection by Oprah in Chapter 11.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Otto lets out a series of "crud's" when he finds that Olive has been one of the latest victims of Mariana Mag.
• Given Name Reveal: Mariana Mag's real name is revealed in Chapter 10b as Maggie Ocean Flounder, with "Ocean" serving as her agent name during her time employed with Odd Squad.
• Gratuitous Latin: The life preserver lifeline that Mariana Mag wears has "Factorem Cypris Praedor Nominas" engraved on each of its four white sections, one word for each section. Chapter 10a reveals that it stands for "Maker of Ciphers, Destroyer of Names".
• Green and Mean: Mariana Mag's eyes are described as being "a piercing green" color.
• Hammerspace: This fanfic has a unique variation on this trope being present in the spines of agents, instead having pockets of agents' suits containing seemingly infinite storage capacity.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Carlos lamenting about how he thinks he's been long forgotten by Odd Squad and how he is wasting away brings some horrific implications when one considers the Season 3 episode "Welcome to Odd Squad" and how it describes Carol as being obsolete and a figment of ancient technology compared to the more high-tech smartwatches.
• Hates Being Called Cute: Olive doesn't take too kindly to being called "dear" by Mariana Mag, but is too exhausted to argue with her.
• Headphones Equal Isolation: At the beginning of Chapter 2, Otto listens to "Probably", Soundcheck's latest song, with headphones on and with the volume cranked all the way up. As a result, he doesn't notice Obfusco shooting a dirty look at Olive and can't hear her when she starts to speak to him in a slow and deliberate manner so he can understand better.
  Otto: WHAT DID YOU SAY?
  Olive: [rolling eyes] First of all, TURN THAT OFF!
• Heel–Face Turn: Once resurrected by Oprah, Mariana Mag turns to the side of good and sheds any semblance of villainy she has. As a reward, she gets to keep her aquarium.
• Heel Realization: In the final chapter of the story, Oprah realizes that she was wrong and that Mariana Mag was right when it came to Odd Squad being narrow-minded and needing to broaden their horizons past mathematics.
• Heroic BSoD: Otto goes through a brief one when he finds Olive turned into an oven by Mariana Mag. Luckily, Oscar is with him to help him snap out of it and work together as two of the few agents still standing.
• Hidden Depths: Otto knows quite a bit about anagrams and solve's Olive's anagram problem in her puzzle book in just shy of 15 seconds. This serves as Foreshadowing for later in the story when he goes to stop Mariana Mag.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Mariana Mag being revealed to have the previous name of Ocean, her working as an Odd Squad agent, and currently working with marine life is quite humorous, considering Season 2 would later introduce an Odd Squad agent named Ocean who effectively started up the Creature Care department and works closely with animals as a Friend to All Living Things (although he lacks any villainous tendencies that this story's Ocean has).
• His Name Is...: Oprah doesn't get a chance to tell Otto and Oscar what Mariana Mag's real name is before the villainess herself barges into her office and attacks her.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Otto manages to defeat Mariana Mag by making it so that her own Anagram-inator's beam hits his mirror and then hits her.
• Holding the Floor: Otto, needing to buy time to think of a plan to take Mariana Mag down, stalls by trying to get Mariana to give a Motive Rant as to her backstory and what vendetta she has against Odd Squad. She manages to find out what he's doing, but still tells her life story to him anyway.
• Hostage For Macguffin: Mariana Mag's act of rebellion involved her anagramming some of her co-workers and parts of Precinct 13579's Headquarters, then demanding that words and language be incorporated into Odd Squad's skillset and modus operandi in exchange for turning the agents and the Headquarters parts back to normal. Oprah agrees to the deal, but as soon as Mariana upholds her end and turns all of the agents and parts back to normal, the Director doesn't uphold her end whatsoever. She sends agents to seize and destroy Mariana's Anagram-inator gadget, orders her to reveal who built it and who helped her, bans any agent from going to see Carlos again, demotes Oksana to the Food and Beverage department, and to top it all off, she takes Mariana's badge and wipes her memory.
• Illness Blanket: Downplayed. They're not ill, but Olive and Otto are given fluffy warm towels when they begin to grow cold from being soaked head to toe in water.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: Otto engages in this at the beginning of Chapter 8, but it's certainly not played as comedy.
  Otto: Ms. O, can't we wait just a little while longer? She'll be here soon, I'm sure of it!
  Oprah: Are you?
  Otto: No. I'm not. I'm worried she's disappeared, too.
• Individuality Is Illegal: Oprah is revealed to run a very tight regime when it comes to her precinct — if you prefer to deal with language rather than mathematics and don't eventually conform with being skilled at mathematics while leaving language behind, then she won't take too kindly to it. And if you rebel against her, then you can expect to be fired. This is what fuels Mariana Mag's Start of Darkness, as Oprah scolds her for hanging out with Carlos too much despite her tasking her agent with language-based cases.
  Mariana Mag: About nine years after I'd been recruited, Ms. O called me up to her office one day. Without any warning, she scolded me for not paying better attention to the math cases and for spending too much time with Carlos. I couldn't believe my ears. I argued that she'd never asked me to do so, to which she merely said that of course she hadn't, it was expected I would improve on my math skills and leave language stuff behind. Well, I didn't like that at all. I tried to explain that math just wasn't my thing, I was doing just fine handling the language cases, thank you very much, but she would hear none of it. This made me furious. So, I decided to rebel.
• Ironic Echo: Chapter 4 opens up with Olive being late to work by fifteen minutes because she got caught up in her puzzle book. Later on, Chapter 8 opens up with Olive being late to work...but she never shows up at all because she's been attacked by Mariana Mag.
• Is This a Joke?: Oprah is startled out of reading the story by Ori, who is curious to know what she's doing. She tells him that she's reading the story (framed as being a case of the same name), and in response, he asks her if he can read it as well. She tries to pull an "are you seriously asking me X" trick on him but it fails because posing that question to him has never worked.
  Ori: Can I read it with you?
  Oprah: Can you read it with me? Are you seriously asking me that question?
  Ori: Yes.
  Oprah: [sighs] Yes, of course you can. We'll finish it together. Now pull up a chair.
• It's Personal: Mariana Mag has absolutely no limits when it comes to whom she targets and whom she attacks, but she's hellbent on getting rid of Oprah specifically.
• Jaw Drop: This is Mariana Mag's reaction to seeing Oprah for (presumably) the first time.
  • Otto and Oscar have this reaction to Oprah telling them how Carol somehow created a twin brother of herself.
• Joke of the Butt: Oren accidentally sits on a shape crystal, which causes a large thick purple rectangle to start growing on his butt. Naturally, Olive starts to laugh, then Contagious Laughter kicks in and Otto and Oscar begin laughing as well.
  Oren: [to Oscar] See?! I knew she would do that!
  • And even when Olive, Otto and Oscar have calmed down, Otto can't resist cracking a joke at Oren's expense.
  Oscar: Oren sat on an active shape crystal, and they're sensitive to being measured.
  Otto: [whispering, to Olive] Or maybe Oren just has a sensitive rear end.
  Olive: [chuckling]
• Keeping Secrets Sucks: Mariana Mag had Oksana keep quiet about her rebellion against Odd Squad, and Oksana complied because like her partner, she tried to convince her boss (Olesya, not Oprah) to accept cases involving music theory in addition to mathematics and got the idea shot down. Although it's never explored in this fanfic, later stories of the author's would show that this took a heavy toll on Oksana, and is why she prefers to work alone.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Chapter 10a reveals that it's routine for Precinct 13579 to wipe the memories of agents who have gone through Face-Heel Turns and have gone rogue, although the only memories wiped are those of where the precinct's Headquarters is located and how to get there. Nonetheless, however, Mariana Mag describes how horrid having her memories wiped was.
  Mariana Mag: It was like they vivisected my brain and tore parts of it out. I think I went unconscious afterward, because the next thing I knew I was waking up at home to my parents' disapproving stares.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Chapter 5 opens with an Author's Note that spoils The Reveal of "Training Day" and who Olive's former partner was.
• Leeroy Jenkins: When Mariana Mag pulls a stun gun out and aims it at Otto, he decides to throw away any thoughts he had of something on her Utility Belt having the ability to reverse anagrams and charges at her.
• The Lightfooted: Mariana Mag is very speedy, which is something that apparently took "years of self-imposed training" to accomplish. A shining example of this is in Chapter 9, when she attacks Oscar before she even has a chance to land in the Language Room.
• Literal Metaphor: In this World of Weirdness, there are two kinds of fruit flies — the insects, and the fruits with small wings that fly around their targets. Olive and Otto believe that Larry and Phyllis are referring to the former when they actually mean the latter.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Oscar and Otto easily deflect Mariana Mag's stun gun attacks with their shields. However, the shields don't cover their whole bodies, meaning that when Oscar holds his shield to his head to block a shot, Mariana Mag goes for his unguarded legs.
• Mirror Character: Oksana is revealed to have gone through a similar plight to Mariana Mag's — she asked Olesya, Oprah's previous boss, about studying and brushing up on music instead of mathematics, and was reprimanded for it. While she didn't have a Face–Heel Turn, she did keep silent about Mariana's rebellion, and was eventually allowed to play her own music in the Breakroom and serve as DJ at Odd Squad-hosted parties because she loved music the way Mariana loved language.
• Mirrors Reflect Everything: Otto pulls out a handheld mirror from his pocket and uses it to reflect the beam from Mariana Mag's Anagram-inator, which hits her in the chest and causes her to turn into her own personalized anagrammed object, a small maroon-colored floor rug.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Diesel is half-dolphin and half-shark, hence why he's amiable to most everyone that sees him.
• Moment Killer: Just as Oprah reads about Oscar being attacked by Mariana Mag and Otto being the last remaining agent to fight her, Ori appears behind her and scares her.
• Morality Chain Beyond the Grave: In an effort to snap Otto out of his Heroic BSoD, Oscar suggests that he and Otto bring Olive back to Headquarters, then go to the aquarium and warn Oprah and the other agents, as it's what Olive herself would have wanted. Although it takes great effort, Otto agrees and decides to go with him.
• Motive Rant: In Chapter 10a, Mariana Mag demonstrates how Genre Savvy she is by telling Otto that getting the villain to spill their life story to the heroes, followed by another hero going to attack the villain while they're distracted, is a common trope seen in the movies. She obliges Otto and his Holding the Floor technique by telling him her backstory only because he's got no one on backup to help him.
• Motor Mouth: One contrast that Carlos has with Carol is his tendency to talk for a long, long time, and very frequently.
• Multi-Part Episode: Chapter 10 is split up into three chapters — 10a, 10b, and 11 — due to length.
• Must Have Caffeine: The Coffee-inator works as a sort of "instant caffeine" trick, which helps Oscar in Chapter 6 when he's suffering from Sleep Deprivation.
• Newhart Phone Call: When Olive calls Oscar about the Put-Back-inator in Chapter 6, only her side of the conversation is shown.
• Not Now, Kiddo: Oprah continuously brushes Otto and Olive off when they try to tell her about Carlos, and it's not until Olive becomes victimized by Mariana Mag that Otto is finally able to tell Oprah about his visit to the Math Room.
• Not So Similar: Mariana Mag is more than happy to point out how different she is compared to Odd Todd when Otto points out their similar backstories.
  Mariana Mag: No, not like Odd Todd did. He's pathetic, I tell you. A hot-tempered, selfish, impatient, smart-aleck brat. Thinks the villains might actually trust and accept him, but to real villains, once an agent means always an agent. He was certainly smart enough, he'd have done better staying with you.
• Not What It Looks Like: Olive decides to reach behind Otto and dig around in his back pants pocket for his Ground-inator gadget. Otto, unaware that he has the gadget in his possession, wastes no time in becoming self-conscious and having his cheeks go red with embarrassment as he notices Larry and Phyllis staring at him, and asks Olive to not do that again, to which she responds that although it was weird, he didn't know what the gadget looked like or whether he had it in his possession or not.
• No Warrant? No Problem!: As Odd Squad agents are not involved with law enforcement, are only children, and already have automatic permission to search a place of residence or business for oddness as is their job, they don't need warrants nor do they have to comply with any laws surrounding warrants that might exist for police officers.
• Oh, Crap!: Oscar gives a string of "oh no's" when he realizes that Oprah is Mariana Mag's latest victim.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: For Mariana Mag's act of rebellion, her father never forgave her for disgracing the family and she never was able to regain his trust.
• Only Friend: It's implied that Carlos was Mariana Mag's only best friend back when she worked for Odd Squad, as she was an outlier for enjoying language over math.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Olive is fifteen minutes late to work, which is something that worries Otto because Olive is never late to work and always shows up at 9:00 in the morning. Olive's reasoning is because she lost track of time doing her puzzle book.
  • Melissa Steinerflute, one of Lord Rectangle's butlers, tells Otto that while Lord Rectangle sometimes leaves on sudden business trips, he usually tells her or Brendan where he's going and when he'll be back, but this time around he hasn't told them anything.
  • In Chapter 8, Otto and Oscar go slack-jawed upon seeing their boss without her usual stern demeanor. When she sees them, she immediately reverts back to her usual personality.
• Orphaned Etymology: Although it's left ambiguous as to whether God, or even religion as a whole, exists in this World of Weirdness whether in canon or in fan works, Otto still gives a couple rounds of "Oh my God" regardless.
• Overworked Sleep: In Chapter 6, when Olive and Otto head into Oprah's office after being summoned, they find her fast asleep with her head on her desk, surrounded by empty juice boxes. Otto wakes her up, but she can't even finish her sentence before she yawns and slinks back into her chair.
  • To say nothing of Olive and Otto themselves, who, like Oprah, Oscar and the rest of the Scientists, stay at Odd Squad until two in the morning trying to solve the mystery of why everyone in town is being turned into inanimate objects — they get to Otto's house and immediately crash and burn on the living room couch without even taking off their uniforms. The only reason why they're less tired than Oprah and Oscar is because they managed to get some semblance of sleep, whereas Oprah and Oscar did not and have to suffer from Sleep Deprivation as a result.
• The Paralyzer: Mariana Mag wields a stun gun that can both stun and "unstun" people. She attempts to use against Otto so he doesn't reveal anything about her backstory to any agents that haven't been turned into objects yet. She manages to get Oscar, which leaves him frozen with his eyes open in horror, and attacks Otto's left side which leaves him temporarily paralyzed.
• Photoshop Filter of Evil: The Language Room, where Carlos resides, has its colors inverted to emphasize how tainted and how different he is from his twin sister Carol.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: Orchid manages to haul an entire iron gate over her shoulder and take it back to the Lab — never mind the fact that the gate is Ori and it's likely almost twice her size. Even Otto is impressed by her show of strength.
  Otto: Man, she's strong!
  Olive: [chuckling] Never underestimate Orchid.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Carol is revealed to have somehow created a twin brother, who is vastly different from her in appearance, purpose, and alliance.
• Proportional Aging: This fanfic runs with the common fanon theory that the badges keep Odd Squad agents from aging, as Mariana Mag explains to Otto that when an agent stays employed with the organization long enough, it makes them younger by a year or two. It explains why Mariana Mag stayed at ten years old for ten years before rebelling, shedding the badge, and growing up by twenty years.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: In Chapter 9, when Oprah tells Otto and Oscar about the results of the aquarium search.
  Oprah: We didn't find anything. Mr. O told me yesterday that the villain uses a gadget hooked onto a belt to turn people into odd objects. I had every available agent on the Maintenance and Security staff ransack the entire building and interrogate every employee to find the villain and their belt gadget. And. We. Found. Nothing!
• Rapid-Fire Typing: Mariana Mag does this at the end of Chapter 7 to destroy a cardboard cutout of Oprah. According to the Author's Note listed at the tail-end of the chapter, rapidly typing a random jumble of letters is the command for "destroy" rather than "turn target into anagrammed object".
• Redemption Rejection: Carlos attempts to try and convince Mariana Mag to stop attacking Otto and Oscar and fix what damage she's done for his sake, and at first she appears to be affected by Carlos's words...but then she goes right back to being evil and tells him that she has to finish what she started.
• Renaissance Man: Invoked by Oprah, who opens up her precinct to oddness stemming from all areas of expertise instead of just mathematics. As a result, since some agents might be skilled in additional areas, they have an ample chance to solve them instead of being chastised or ignored.
• The Reveal: Chapter 10a reveals that not only was Mariana Mag an Odd Squad agent gone bad, but Oksana — yes, that Oksana — used to be her partner.
• Running Gag: This story contains the same "If Sheila could see me now" running joke that is prominent throughout Season 1.
• Save the Villain: Oprah decides to resurrect Mariana Mag, so to speak, and transforms her back into a human from her anagrammed state instead of destroying the Anagram-inator.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Mariana Mag decides to bolt when Otto, and later Oprah and Oscar, end up confronting her about her lies.
• Sequel Hook: The end of the story has Oprah receiving her large order of jellybeans and remarking that "I just hope she likes these..." However, it's not entirely the end, as Patterns of the Past is a sequel to it.
• Shout-Out: Otto notes that Carlos's voice, when not depressed, sounds like that of C-3PO.
• Significant Anagram: This is Mariana Mag's primary specialty, which makes her an outlier considering most villains in Odd Squad's Rogues Gallery have mathematical specialties. Hell, even her own name is an anagram, "I Am Anagram" (although it's not her real name).
  • Carlos's name is also an anagram for "Carol", which is fitting since he is an English-oriented counterpart to her.
  • The name of Mariana's aquarium, French Toddlers' Sphere Aquarium, is an anagram as well, for "M. Flounder's Cipher Headquarters".
• Slasher Smile: Mariana Mag gives one of these when she comes to a realization of how she can infiltrate Precinct 13579's Headquarters.
  • She pulls of another one at the end of Chapter 7. Safe to say, she's more of a fan of evil smiles than she is a fan of a signature Evil Laugh.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Chapter 10a reveals that Oprah wears reading glasses. This is carryover from the end of "How to Interrogate a Unicorn", where she was seen wearing glasses that appeared to be Purely Aesthetic Glasses and weren't referred to as reading glasses of any sort.
• Subverted Catchphrase: Under normal circumstances, when Olive and Otto enter Oprah's office, she tells them that something very odd has happened and they ask her what the problem is. However, when Otto poses the question to her, she tells him and Olive that she never said there was a problem, just that something odd has happened, and that he shouldn't jump to assumptions. In response, he becomes hurt and offended over her scolding and starts to protest before he's cut off.
• Suddenly Bilingual: Chapter 10a reveals that Otto can fluently read Latin.
• Tap on the Head: Otto goes unconscious when his head hits the hexagonal platform after he slides out of Mariana Mag's arms.
• Tempting Fate: When thinking about Mariana Mag in Chapter 6, Otto tells himself to count his blessings because at least no Odd Squad agents have been victimized yet...and then Oscar gives a distressed cry when he finds out that one of his Oscarbots has indeed been attacked by Mariana.
• That Man Is Dead: Oprah asks Mariana Mag, now referred to by her actual name of Maggie Ocean Flounder, what she wants to be referred to when she resurrects her. Maggie tells her to call her by just that and not by her previous agent name, Ocean, or by her villainous alias of Mariana Mag.
  Oprah: Agents, may I introduce you to Maggie Ocean Flounder. Though, what would you prefer to go by?
  Maggie: Maggie's fine. Ocean's dead to me. Dead since 1995.
  Oprah: I'll take responsibility for being her executioner. At least, that's what I understand.
  Maggie: Yeah, pretty much. If it's worth anything, Mariana Mag is dead, too. Otto took care of that.
• There Are No Police: Averted. This fanfic has police exist in the world of Odd Squad, which serve as regular law enforcement that deal with the same crimes as police officers do in real life.
• They're Called "Personal Issues" for a Reason: Odd Squad has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding agents' parents, meaning that agents can't ask each other about their home lives nor can they tell anyone about their home lives. As such, Otto doesn't know about Olive's life at home nor what her parents are like (if she even has parents, that is).
• Threatening Shark: Subverted. A shark in the FTS Aquarium named Diesel begins attacking Otto by ramming into his chest and leaving him unable to breathe by disconnecting his snorkeling tube from his mouth, then when Olive goes to help him, the shark goes for her as well and rams into her chest, causing her to move around and be tossed like a volleyball. It then leaves the partner pair in search of food, and when they get to the surface and meet Mariana Mag, she tells them that Diesel is a completely harmless shark, although both of them are very shaken up from the attack both physically and mentally.
• Title Drop: Occurs numerous times in Chapter 9, which factors into Otto's "Eureka!" Moment as to why everyone got turned into specific objects.
  Oscar: I don't get this! We've spent four whole days trying to solve this case, and no matter what we do or find out, we get nowhere! It's all mixed up whatever we-
  Otto: Hold on. Say that again.
  Oscar: What? That it's all mixed up?
  Otto: [thinking] All mixed up...all mixed up...all mixed- oh. Oh. Oh my God. Oh my God, that's IT!
• Tube Travel: Deconstructed. Although the only way for Odd Squad agents to reach the world aboveground is by tube, Otto doesn't like it a bit, as he is unable to breathe due to his organs being mixed up and being in a small confined space — so it doesn't help matters when he and Olive end up arriving smack-dab in the middle of an aquarium tank, and he finds he's unable to breathe.
• Utility Belt: Mariana Mag fashions her red Investigation agent belt into one of these, which holds her lifeline gadget and her keyboard that she wields as her weapon of choice.
• Viler New Villain: Make no mistake — Mariana Mag may be a new villain who isn't even inducted into Toronto's society of villains, but she's definitely one of the more vile villains in Odd Squad's Rogues Gallery and manages to get to a Near-Villain Victory.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Oprah may be on the side of good and is incredibly skilled at mathematics, but wiping one of her own agents' memories for rebelling against Odd Squad because she wasn't skilled at math and wanted to stick to the one subject she was skilled at can be seen by some as her taking things a step too far, even though the memories wiped only include where the victimized precinct is and how to get there.
• We Will Meet Again: Orville's agents have already defeated Mariana Mag and her gadget, but she's not down for the count, and once she repairs it she sets her sights on Toronto, its citizens, and eventually on Oprah's agents.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Mariana Mag has strawberry-blonde hair and is the Big Bad of the story.
• You Are in Command Now: Oprah leaves Olive, Otto and Oscar in charge of Precinct 13579 as temporary co-Directors while she visits Orville's precinct. This puts Olive and Otto at an inconvenience, as they need to talk to Oprah about Carlos.

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