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Trope Talk: Timeloops

Stop me if you've heard this one!

Trope Talk: Timeloops

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Steins Gate is an excellent time loop anime. It follows a eccentric young scientist and friends who accidentally invent a time machine that can send one text message back in time. Eventually they develop it into an intentional time loop machine that sends memories back in time. It's a little different than most time loops because it's not a super power or some twist of fate. It's a thing you have to choose to use and you have to build it every loop or be doomed to make this your last try.

Samus Clark

I read "All You Need Is Kill", the Japanese novel that "Edge of Tomorrow" is based on, some years ago, and the author points to reloading a save in video games as an inspiration for the time loop premise, saying that when he beat a video game he didn't feel like a hero because he'd gotten to try over and over again until he got lucky. I don't recall if he mentioned Groundhog Day as an inspiration or where he got the name "Rita" from (in the book she was American and "Cage" was a Japanese rookie soldier named Keiji).

The Narrator

Is anyone else mildly sad they don't get to see Red stream outer wilds and experience it for the first time? Watching people play Outer Wilds for the first time is one of my favorite types of video.

Ryan

yet even in the removal of that control parts of the story revolve around subaru CHOOSING to have agency in the situation, and learning to appriciate other peoples agency even in a time looping scenario. (the re:if greed short story showing what happens if he surrenders his agency)

Theadrine

I love that in Re:Zero the time loop which is always a trope that removes agency, finds a way to take even more control from the mc (the checkpoint moving without his control)

IrisGoddessOfRainbows

Y'all with Arcane ending TONIGHT and there being a moderate chance some time loop stuff is happening (Jayce and or Ekko), imagine Red barely missed out on talking about it

IrisGoddessOfRainbows

One of the best "The Librarians" episodes IMHO is season 2 episode 8 "and the point of salvation" which combines both a time loop and a video game

Hugh Fisher

Yeah, especially in relation to how it handles the "perminace" of the loops too. its got an interesting approach. im currently reading the LN and as "time looping" goes its deffinately one of the best

Theadrine

One of my favorite time/death loops is the anime Summertime Rendering. I love how it uses a moving checkpoint as well as an enemy that is looping too in order to keep up the mystery and suspense

IrisGoddessOfRainbows

It's not exactly a time loop but I've seen the idea that a party moves out of a dungeon at level 1 and each tpk sets them back. They keep their levels and knowledge so they slowly improve until they can escape

IrisGoddessOfRainbows

I was pretty confident Red wouldn't know about Re:Zero but it still hurt not to see such an amazing death loop be mentioned

IrisGoddessOfRainbows

Cool idea. I've always wanted to do a whole campaign in a time loop, but know how to do it.

James K.

Mother of Learning is unusual in timeloop fics, in that the loop is ~3 months long. Returnal (a game) uses a time loop to explain the roguelike mechanics; you can find your previous bodies left by other players, implying the millions of total loops by players are canon.

Nathan Fish

Fantastic video, Im surprised at the lack of mention of Re:Zero which is a fantastic "time loop" story (even if the main character is fairly insufferable at the beginning, which is partially the point)

Theadrine

I am so incredibly excited to watch this, my all time favorite trope!

Nightpelt Shadow

Serendipitous... I am struggling with a timeloop encounter for a d&d game.

Max Brannan


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