A/N

I don't own anything. Credit goes to Sinister Corruptions on YouTube for coming up with this theory in the first place, and all other rights go to the owners of LazyTown.

This is the first time in... about a year and a half I think that I've been motivated to write something. I've been wanting to do this for a while; I found this theory 2019/2020-ish, but even as out-there and maybe even far-fetched as it is, it seemed to make sense the more I watched their videos (or at least a very different and compelling view of the series.) It would probably help to check them out on YouTube, as they go into more detail than I do (though I've added a few theories of my own), and even point out some symbolism that I might not get around to mentioning. Of course, if Sinister Corruptions wants me to take this down for whatever reason, I will, but I thought it'd be nice to finish what they didn't.

The lights seemed to wake up with Sportacus as he flipped out of bed and began his morning workout. Some would say that Sportacus had an unhealthy obsession with being active, eating healthy and moving around, but he didn't care what anyone else thought. He had spent several months getting ready for the biggest mission of his life, and he needed to be ready for anything. What mission, you might ask? A rescue mission to save former hero Robert Radiant from the death trap disguised as the near-abandoned LazyTown.

Unfortunately, said mission wasn't as straightforward as simply grabbing Radiant by the arm and running off: LazyTown was right smack dab in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles away from civilization, and while there were plenty of ways in, the only way out was through train... and said train was run by puppet thugs who answer only to their mistress. It was a miracle that his predecessor, Hero Number 9, was barely able to escape with his life. Every other hero that tried before him was never heard from again.

Not even Sportacus' airship would be able to escape. Why was that? Nanotechnology? Magic? Well, nobody knows how exactly evil mastermind Bessie Busybody managed to do it, but she made all other ways of getting out of LazyTown virtually impossible. He should know: he had been stuck floating over LazyTown for several weeks now, though he hoped he was at too high of an altitude for them to notice him.

Grabbing a carrot from his sports candy machine, Sportacus knew even though the situation he had gotten himself into was dangerous, he was grateful his food supply would last him for several more months before he would really be in trouble.

In a narrow teal house, four puppet children sat staring at a screen, their plastic eyes glazed over from focusing on the TV in front of them. Only one of them, a redheaded Black child wearing a headset was actually playing the game, stopping only to grab a sip of soda. His three friends were either sitting next to him or behind him, munching on popcorn and candy.

"Stingy, will you let me have some popcorn?" the only girl of the four asked the boy in front of her.

"Well I could give you one little piece," the boy held it up, as if briefly debating whether or not to share, "but it's mine," he decided as he took it for himself.

"Stingy! Let me have some popcorn!" the girl complained.

"What, what? I need some... uh... Oh!" the redhead said to himself as he was losing the game.

"Game over!" the girl said, a chuckle following shortly after.

"So, uh... what do we do now?" a small blonde boy on the other side of the couch asked.

"Same thing we always do, huh? Play it again."

The other children only watched as he restarted his game.

A large yellow building sat in the middle of the town. This was LazyTown's Town Hall. Inside were two puppets: one a balding, middle-aged man frantically dusting his office (and couldn't help but sneeze as he got some dust in his nose), the other a blue-haired woman, cheerily chatting on the phone.

"It's true!" the woman said to her companion over the phone.

"Oh my!" the man mumbled to himself.

"And you will never guess what she said to her." The woman followed her comment with a hysterical cackle as the other voice spoke.

As the puppet man made his way over to the desk, he wasn't paying attention and accidentally brushed the woman's face with the duster.

"The Mayor Meanswell, for goodness' sakes!" the woman snapped, holding the phone to her chest.

"Ms. Busybody, please forgive me," the mayor begged, a hint of sheepishness in his voice.

Luckily for him, he had caught her in a good mood. "Why are you running amok with a feather duster?" she asked. "As mayor of LazyTown, you are supposed to prevent problems, not create them."

"Well, today's the day my niece Stephanie is coming to stay with me. Look, here's her picture," the mayor pointed to the pink-framed picture of his human niece on the desk.

"Oh, that's who it is! She's lovely." A lovely addition to my collection, that is, she thought to herself.

"Ah, yes," the mayor agreed.

"But you don't know anything about raising children."

"What's to know? They just stay inside all day playing video games and eating candy."

"Well, yes, that's true. Still, you'll need some help. Now take some notes, because there is a lot to learn."

The mayor nodded as he pulled out a paper and pencil.

"Children need a lot of attention."

"Children..." the mayor began his note.

"Oh, and they need lots of rest," Ms. Busybody added.

"Oh, yes, uh... children need..." he stopped writing and looked up at her. "What was that uh, first thing, again?"

"Lots of attention."

"Ah, yes..." finishing the sentence, he looked over at her again. "Erm, Ms. Busybody?"

"Do I need to write this down for you?" Exasperated, Busybody took the paper from the mayor before he had a chance to answer, and wrote down everything she wanted to make sure that he did in clean, neat print so the simple-minded puppet man wouldn't have any misunderstandings.

"I was just wondering, uh, does Stephanie have to go through...'the process'?"

"Of course she does! Every LazyTown resident does!" she responded without hesitation, not even looking up from the paper. "Besides, you've told me what happened to her parents. This means that her stay with you is permanent, is it not?"

"Y-yes-"

"So then what's the problem? If she has no one to go home to, there'll be no one to ask questions."

"But, oh, uh, I think she might... when she's noticed that she's not going home."

"Why's that? She knows what's happened to her parents."

"Ah, uh, well," the mayor looked down, nervously tapping his fingers together.

Ms. Busybody stopped writing to look up at him. "... She does know what's happened, doesn't she?"

"I offered to be the one to tell her at first, but then, uh... then I... kind of panicked and uh, only said her parents asked her to stay for the summer."

"What?! Milford! Oh for crying out-" the blue-haired woman face palmed.

"I'm terribly sorry, Ms. Busybody."

"Well, perhaps with any luck, she might not ask at all. I've never once heard the other children ask about theirs."

"Oh uh, I suppose that's true."

"Yes." Reviewing the piece of paper to make sure there was nothing else to add, she handed it back to the mayor. "That should do it for now. Why don't you go home and get things ready for our newest resident, and worry about that whole 'parent' fiasco later?"

"Ah, yes. That's a good idea, Ms. Busybody." The mayor then turned to leave.

"Oh, and Milford?"

"Yes?"

"If you know what's best for your niece... you won't interrupt the process."

"... Yes, Ms. Busybody."

Deep in an underground lair, evil laughter echoed through the room. Its source was a tall, thin man with slick, plastic-like black hair and plastic eyebrows, pulling a cake out of a smoking microwave.

"Ah, yummy!" He had been playing the role of the town villain for so long, evil laughter has become something of a verbal tic for him. "Mmm-mmm!" You might not think that antidote-flavored cake sounds particularly tasty, but even if Robbie didn't like it, it wasn't like he had much of a choice if he wanted to keep whatever was left of him was human. Humming and walking over to his periscope as he continued to laugh, he said to himself "well, let's take a peek. Mwahaha."

Clearing his throat, he peered into his periscope, glancing around at various places of the empty streets above.

"Ah, perfect! This is exactly how I, Robbie Rotten, planned it. LazyTown is the laziest town on the planet..." he commented, taking a bite of his cake. "Mmm..." Looking down at the camera staring straight at him, he decided to reassure whoever may be watching on the other side, "and I'm going to keep it that way."

Laughing evilly, he sat down on the keyboard behind him, discordant notes startling him and forcing him to drop his cake. He growled in anger (in part caused by dropping his cake, and in part from his frustration at being so easily startled) before regaining his composure. "I meant to do that," he said to the empty air.

Mayor Meanswell stood outside of his tiny yellow cottage. "Oh, when will she be here?" He took a moment to look at the watch wrapped around the thumb of his oven mitt. "Oh! Oh my! Oh dear! Any time now."

And really, she was almost there. The pink-haired human girl made her way through the abandoned town. Where is everybody? she wondered. And why does everything look so... broken?

Out of the corner of her eye, Stephanie noticed a green butterfly that seemed to follow her wherever she went. She assumed it would be nothing to worry about, but in the back of her mind, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being... watched, somehow.

The butterfly wasn't the only thing following her: Robbie (who had just picked his cake up from the floor) had just noticed the human child that walked by his periscope.

"Hello, Stephanie!" the mayor called.

Gasping, Robbie spit out the bite he took, and once again dropped his cake. Hands shaking, he gripped the handles of the periscope. Could he really believe his eyes right now?!

"Over here, Stephanie!"

Stephanie smiled as she saw him in the distance. She knew it had been a few years, but she couldn't help but notice just how different he looked from the last time she saw him. She had been told he had a lot of plastic surgery, but she didn't expect that he had so much he looked like another species altogether!

"Hi, Uncle Milford!" she called back. To be polite, she said nothing about his new appearance, approached him and hugged him anyway. "I'm so glad to be here!"

"And I'm so glad to have you! Oh, we'll have a wonderful time! How was your trip?"

You mean besides from the weird-looking staff that also had too much plastic surgery? Stephanie thought.

She shrugged. "It was okay, I like riding in trains."

"Ah, uh, let's get you to your room. I'll take your suitcase..."

The mayor bent down when Stephanie beat him to it. "Oh no, it's okay, I got it." She hurried back to the house carrying the heavy bags.

"Oh! Uh, strong girl!" Milford said to himself.

"Well, this could mean trouble!" was what Robbie said out loud to the camera. What he really wished he could say was "again?! How many more people - how many more innocent children do you need before you're satisfied?!"

"I'm so happy you've come to visit!" Milford exclaimed as they walked into the kitchen together. He would tell her the truth when the time came, but for now, he didn't want to spoil her usually perky demeanor.

"Wow, Uncle! This is a nice place! I think I'm going to like it here."

"Ah, yes..."

Stephanie stopped smiling for a moment and scrunched her face slightly. "What's that smell?"

"Ah! Oh my! Oh, oh dear!" her uncle panicked as he rushed to the oven, and started coughing as a cloud of smoke filling the room. "Oh dear! I was baking a cake for Ms. Busybody, but I think I'm only making a mess for myself."

Stephanie began to feel a little sick when she inhaled some of the smoke.

Some of it remained in the room as Milford closed the oven. "Why don't I show you to your room?"

Stephanie was originally smiling because she didn't want her uncle to know that she was concerned about his well-being and the general weirdness of the town, but after walking out of the kitchen, colors in her yellow and pink environment seemed brighter and more inviting, so it was easier to smile for real.

"Make yourself at home, and have a rest," the mayor said from the door.

"Oh, I'm not tired."

Milford gasped. "Really?"

"Really! In fact, I was kind of hoping to play now."

"Oh, well, uh, here you go," Milford pulled a deck of cards from his pocket and handed it to her.

"...Playing cards?"

"Have a nice summer!"

When Stephanie said she wanted to play, she meant something along the lines of playing outside with other kids. Before she could protest, however, her uncle had already left the room. Did he really think playing cards, all by herself would keep her busy for the next three months?

An hour had passed, and while balancing cards on a cushy bed wasn't an easy task, Stephanie had built a stable tower out of the whole deck. It wasn't the most fun she ever had, but it was still better than nothing at all to do. Now with one card left, she did her best to carefully place it at the top.

"Having a good time?" Stephanie looked at her uncle standing in the doorway of her room.

"Give me another deck of cards and I'll build the Empire State Building," she retorted.

The sound of an egg timer came from the kitchen. "Oh! My cake! Oh my!"

Stephanie shook her head. Since when had her uncle become so obsessed with cake?

Grabbing a ball from her bag and following him into the kitchen, she was pleased to find at least the house wasn't filling up with smoke this time. "That's a lovely cake, Uncle."

"Oh yes, isn't it beautiful?" he noticed the ball in her hands. "Oh, uh, where are you going?"

"I was going to go out to find some kids to play with."

"Oh! Kids playing in LazyTown! Oh, that's a good one!" He began laughing.

A bit nervously, Stephanie joined in with a small chuckle.

"No one does that," he said flatly, breaking their laughter.

"What?"

"No, really, no one plays outside. And what if something terrible should happen? What if you played so much that you got tired?"

"I'm just going out to play!" She walked out the door before he could stop her.

"Oh well uh, please, be careful!" Milford called out to her as she closed the door behind her. Sitting in silence for a moment, he whispered to himself "please, please be careful."

He wasn't the only one watching her leave: Ms. Busybody watched the young girl through her butterfly camera. This didn't surprise her one bit: knowing how much human children loved to wander off, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Closing her eyes for a moment, Busybody focused her mind's eye towards her minions. It didn't particularly matter to her which one went to go check on her, but she figured Stephanie would be more at ease with other children around her. Now... whom to choose...?

Ziggy's sight fell into a tunnel vision. He felt numb, and his surroundings became much quieter. Feeling compelled to leave the room, he let his popcorn bag fall to the floor as he made his way out of the house. The others were so entranced by the television, they hadn't even noticed their friend's absence.

When the feeling was over, Ziggy found himself outside in Lazy Park. That's weird, how'd he get here? Just a minute ago he was with Pixel and the other kids...

Oh well. Lazy Park wasn't too far from Pixel's house, so he could just walk right back over.

He had almost passed the strange pink-haired girl sitting by herself on a park bench, rolling the ball back and forth.

"Hm?" Ziggy took the lollipop out of his mouth to talk to her. "Who are you, and do you have any candy?"

"Um, no," Stephanie responded. She paused, studying him for a moment. Did everyone in this town get plastic surgery? Even the kids? What a strange place. "I'm Stephanie, I like your costume." She offered her hand for him to shake.

"I'm Ziggy, and I like candy," Ziggy replied, taking her hand.

Stephanie struggled for a bit to pull her hand from Ziggy's own sticky fingers. "I can feel that." Shaking her hand, as if she could rid of the stickiness that way, she asked, "so where do all the kids in LazyTown play?"

"Kids? Playing in LazyTown?" Ziggy laughed.

Just down in his lair, Robbie returned to his periscope to look up at the scene above.

"That's funny, Stephanie," Ziggy finished.

Robbie gripped the handles of his periscope. "What!?"

"No, seriously! Where are all the kids and where do they play?"

Robbie's heart raced faster, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he felt himself getting worked up. "Who is she? What is she talking about? There is no playing in LazyTown!"

Ziggy went on to tell her what the kids did do: "Mondays through Fridays, we watch Pixel play video games and I eat candy." He sighed happily at the thought of candy. "And Trixie," he added, frowning, "she takes my candy and hides it!" he scoffed in annoyance. "And Stingy, he has a lot of candy, but he won't share it! And I... I eat more candy. Ah..."

Stephanie shook her head in disbelief. "That's it?"

"Well, sometimes we eat cake. Yeah!" Ziggy had to dig through his hollow head for a bit to find whatever else he and the other kids would do.

"Cake's okay sometimes, but... don't you guys play?"

"No! Nobody likes to play! Now go home! Shoo! Hello! Go home! No playing!" Sure, what Robbie was saying could've been taken as "go back to your house with your mayor", but what he really wished he could scream was "GET THE HELL OUT OF LAZYTOWN AND NEVER COME BACK! IT'S A TRAP, YOU HEAR ME?! A BRIGHTLY-COLORED, SURGARY INFESTED TRAP!" But he knew she probably wouldn't be able to hear him from there. And if anyone was watching him right now (which he was certain they were), he was bound to get in trouble for saying such a thing.

"Play? Pfft. If we would play, when would we eat candy? Well, that's important."

"Wait... she's talking to Ziggy. He only wants to eat candy... so there is no problem! Ha ha ha! Whoo!" Robbie wiped his forehead. "That was close."

"Do you want to come meet the other kids?" Ziggy offered.

"Yeah, sure!"

"It's right around the corner here... yeah, come on."

"But where are they going?" Robbie asked, watching the two walk away.

Back at Pixel's house, Pixel kept playing the game while his friends watched.

"Uh uh, here we go, uh uh uh, aaah..." Pixel spoke to himself.

Ziggy and Stephanie came into the house, Stephanie closing the door behind her.

"There they are. Hey guys! Hey guys! Guess what?"

Pixel glanced over for a second before returning his eyes to the screen. "Not now Ziggy, I'm busy!"

Ziggy, ignoring him, continued. "I want you to meet..."

"Ziggy, I said I'm..." the dark-skinned puppet suddenly went into shock on seeing her, losing all focus on his game. He couldn't believe his eyes:

She's... she's... human.

Images flooded his mind: grass on his bare feet, puffy white clouds floating in the sky above, the warm embrace of a larger woman; her scent sweet, and her skin soft. Were these... memories of his? Maybe... he didn't exactly daydream about stuff like this.

Trixie's voice began to bring him back to reality. "Pixel, you're losing the game!"

His expression hadn't changed. "That's okay," he said calmly, her words just barely registering over his headphone covered ears.

"What?!" Trixie was taken aback: this was so unlike her friend!

She wasn't the only one: Stingy accidentally got a popcorn kernel stuck in the wrong tube. "Is it? It is?" he asked.

"Hi, I'm Stephanie, the mayor's niece. I'm from out of town."

"Uh, what's that you're holding?" Pixel asked.

"A soccer ball!" Stephanie exclaimed. "Do you guys want to play?"

"Um..." Pixel didn't seem to enthusiastic.

"That's what we're playing, Pinky," Trixie said as she pointed at the soccer video game.

"No, not in the TV, I mean outside. Don't you ever play outside?" Stephanie asked.

The kids all shook their heads in disagreement, accompanied with "mm-mm"s and "no".

"But playing soccer outside is great!" Stephanie exclaimed. "You know, running, and jumping, in the sunshine and the fresh air?"

"The...the fresh?" Ziggy asked, confused.

"Yeah!"

Trixie and Stingy continued to shake their heads and look at each other with muddled expressions, while Pixel's visions were beginning to fade away.

Stephanie was equally bewildered by these kids' lack of experience in what came so simply to her, and maybe even just about every other kid in the world. "Haven't you ever kicked a soccer ball before?"

Again came the shaking of heads and mutual disagreement.

"No, we haven't," Ziggy muttered.

"Hit a baseball?"

Somebody's gonna have to teach them how to play outside, Stephanie thought after another round of confusion from the other children. I guess that somebody's gonna have to be me.

"Come on, follow me!" She turned and rushed out the door.

The kids sat there for a moment, reluctant to do as she said. It wasn't until Pixel said "...Okay! Up and at 'em guys!" that they did so. (Being the oldest of the children, it was usually his lead the others took after.)

An upbeat tune suddenly played in Stephanie's ears. But she liked fast, peppy songs, so she decided not to fight it.

"Have you ever skipped rope?" Stephanie asked in song.

"Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh," the puppet kids shook their heads and sang in time along with her.

Did his ears hear correctly? Was that... music? Robbie growled. What was going on up there?

Storming towards the front of his lair, he climbed up the ladder, and struggled to lift the heavy latch door. He hadn't been active since... well, he couldn't remember when, but he wasn't as strong as he used to be. Then again, that's what happens when you stay in LazyTown for as long as he has.

It had taken him longer to get down the ladder than he would have liked, but in his condition, he needed to take at least a little bit of time, or he could seriously hurt himself.

Robbie covered his eyes as he jumped off the ladder. It was always that last step that was a doozy for him. Closing the latch door behind him, he headed off in the direction of the music.

The closer Robbie got to the source of the singing, the more he could hear some of the lyrics:

"You gotta listen to me, can't you see that life is full of games? And they make you feel so happy!" He hadn't heard that voice before: it must've belonged to the new girl! She had only arrived a couple of hours ago; could this mean that she was beginning to fall under her control already?

Sneaking up out of sight, Robbie could feel his stomach sink as the sight he saw confirmed his suspicions. Plugging his ears to tune out the cleverly-disguised mind-control, he watched in horror as the pink haired girl hopped, twirled and sang. She really had no idea of the danger she was in. And the puppet children were dancing with her?! And being active?! It seemed she also wasn't aware of all the trouble she could get the rest of them into!

I must put a stop to this! But how? Think Robbie, think! As the song ended, it dawned on him: the controllers! Just the temptations needed to keep each child under control just in case something like this happened. He needed to notify Ms. Busybody right away... if she wasn't aware of this already, that is.

It wasn't long before the kids were running around the abandoned soccer field.

Trixie held the ball in her hands. "Hey, guys! Check this move out!"

Kicking it over the fence, the others cheered and applauded in awe... which happened to be short-lived when the ball was caught, the slender figure holding it revealing himself, making the puppet children gasp.

"Uh-oh, it's Robbie Rotten," Ziggy said.

"Who's that?" Stephanie asked.

"Oh, just the laziest, grumpiest, no-do-anything-est guy in all of LazyTown," Trixie said as Robbie made his way to the other side of the gate.

"Why, thank you! Took years of practicing." Little known fact: it really did. "So, what is this?" he asked, pointing at the ball in his hand.

"A ball! We were playing," Stephanie said.

"Playing?!" Robbie exclaimed.

"Uh-huh!" Ziggy responded enthusiastically.

Robbie pulled a small pile of candy from his back pocket. "Want this?" he asked Ziggy.

"Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!" Ziggy wiggled his fingers excitedly.

"If I give it to you, will you go away?" Robbie continued.

"I'm already gone!" Ziggy responded eagerly.

Robbie tossed the candy to Ziggy, the latter running off to go enjoy his new snack.

"And look-ie what else I have: a new video game!"

Pixel gasped as Robbie pulled out a copy of Super Power Lizards.

"I hear it's got 5000 levels!" the villain continued.

"No, 6000 plus bonus levels!" Pixel soon ran off in the same direction as Robbie gave him the game. "Oh, wow! Gotta get home now! Gotta get home! Gotta get home! Gotta get home!" Pixel said to himself as he ran off.

"And by the way," Robbie said to Stingy, "that was yours."

Stingy gasped. "Wait! Come back! That's mine!" he yelled, running after Pixel.

Stephanie put her hands on her hips and glared at him.

"Have you ever heard the sound of a rubber ball breaking a window?" Robbie asked Trixie.

"Uh-uh," the puppet girl responded.

"Would you like to?!"

"Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!"

Robbie tossed the ball to Trixie.

"Oh, yeah!" She giggled mischievously as she left.

"Hey!" Stephanie complained.

"You didn't stand a chance," Robbie said smugly. "Now why don't you sit quietly and do nothing like a good little girl?" he asked, laughing evilly.

Staying long enough to hear just what a rubber ball breaking a window sounded like, Robbie stalked away, turning to wave at Stephanie before ducking back behind the fence.

Robbie could hear her storm off on the other side. He sighed under his breath, partially from relief, and partially from guilt. If only he could tell her why she needed to sit and do nothing... but he found the more the residents were kept in the dark about this, the safer it would be for them. For all of them.

A/N

I originally was going to write this as one chapter per episode, but the whole thing was so big, I thought it'd be easier to read (and easier for me to write) if I split the episodes up around the halfway point. I'm almost done with part 2 though, so hopefully I'll be able to post that very soon!