History Main / TimeLoopFatigue

* The ''Literature/HarryPotter'' story ''[[https://hayseed42.wordpress.com/2014/06/27/getting-the-hang-of-thursdays-0122/ GettingTheHangOfThursdays]]'' is about all of Hogwarts being stuck inside a single-day time loop with a few fixed details, including [[spoiler:Hermione]] dying and a time-turner being smashed. The loop has been going on for a long time before a few characters start to be aware of it, but horrible despair sets in pretty quickly as all attempts to prevent the death make it happen in worse and worse ways. Suicide only lets her choose the method and how painful it will be because she will die anyway, every day, ''[[NightmareFuel and she remembers every time.]]'' It's not much better for [[spoiler:Professor Snape]] watching it happen and failing time after time to prevent it, either.

* The ''Literature/HarryPotter'' story ''Fanfic/GettingTheHangOfThursdays'' is about all of Hogwarts being stuck inside a single-day time loop with a few fixed details, including [[spoiler:Hermione]] dying and a time-turner being smashed. The loop has been going on for a long time before a few characters start to be aware of it, but horrible despair sets in pretty quickly as all attempts to prevent the death make it happen in worse and worse ways. Suicide only lets her choose the method and how painful it will be because she will die anyway, every day, ''[[NightmareFuel and she remembers every time.]]'' It's not much better for [[spoiler:Professor Snape]] watching it happen and failing time after time to prevent it, either.

* The Endless Eight Arc in the second season of ''[[Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' has the world go through the same two weeks over and over thanks to an unwitting Haruhi Suzumiya...''15,532 times''. That's about 595 years of doing the same things over and over. And Yuki Nagato is the only one aware of what's happening from the beginning but is forbidden by her superior the Data Overmind from any interference because her job is to observe. For a character who would be the poster child of the EmotionlessGirl trope if we didn't already know she has emotions that are just heavily suppressed and difficult for her to express, the fact that even casual viewers can see visible fatigue on her face is enough to tell us that she's right up against the DespairEventHorizon at her situation and if she had a regular human's emotiveness she would probably be a sobbing mess crumpled into a fetal position on the floor. [[spoiler:This is almost certainly the reason why Yuki steals Haruhi's powers and alters the world so that everyone has normal lives and Haruhi is PutOnABus in the ''Disappearance'' story arc after "Endless Eight" -- she is ''that'' sick and tired of what she had gone through.]]

* In the [[ComicBook/RegularShow comic book miniseries]] for ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'': "Skips", Skips ends up finding himself stuck in a time loop whenever Mordecai and Rigby drop soda and pop rocks down a geyser in the park that he, Benson, and the duo are visiting. He teams up with a time cop named Ted to try to stop it, but it results in a lot of failed attempts, meaning weeks pass as they work to figure out a solution. Some days they don't even bother and just take a break before the loop resets. Skips nearly hits a DespairEventHorizon until some inspiration from Benson leads to a solution [[spoiler:and the ''real'' cause of the time loops: a Destruction Lord.]]

* The ''Literature/HarryPotter'' story ''Fanfic/GettingTheHangOfThursdays'' is about all of Hogwarts being stuck inside a single-day time loop with a few fixed details, including [[spoiler:Hermione]] dying and a time-turner being smashed. The loop has been going on for a long time before a few characters start to be aware of it, but horrible despair sets in pretty quickly as all attempts to prevent the death make it happen in worse and worse ways. Suicide only lets her choose the method and how painful it will be because she will die anyway, every day, ''[[NightmareFuel and she remembers every time.]]'' It's not much better for [[spoiler:Professor Snape]] watching it happen and failing time after time to prevent it, either.

* ''Fanfic/TheBestNightEver'' starts with [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Prince Blueblood]] waking up after the Grand Galloping Gala, only to find he's gone back to the morning before it. At first he tries to play along, thinking it's a prank, but as it becomes clear time is repeating itself he tries avoiding it, then starts exploiting it to indulge himself, and then starts trying to kill himself when that gets boring. Eventually he figures out that he has to get the day right to escape. [[spoiler:His first attempt fails because he's miscalculated -- while everyone technically got what they wanted, nopony ''enjoyed'' it. He seriously considers [[GodzillaThreshold breaking Discord free]] just to get out.]]
* [[WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball Gumball]] gets hit by this hard in [[https://m.fanfiction.net/s/7647419/1/ The Loop.]] At first they're relatively benign hijinks, but as he gradually loses his hope and sanity the longer he spends in the Loop, it escalates in violence and desperation. At its peak, he's physically attacking his own family, his schoolmates and finding new and creative ways to kill himself in front of the school during the pep rally (such as setting himself on fire and eating rat poison).
* [[WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug Miraculous Ladybug]] fics tend to have an interesting variant through the character of Luka aka Viperion. The Time Loop is entirely voluntary & he can leave it at will. But when the stakes are high & the consequences dire, its not always an option he personally can accept. The result is often more like emotional burnout, even just actual fatigue, and other real world symptoms of severe overwork.

* ''Film/HappyDeathDay'': Tree suffers this, especially after [[spoiler:killing Tombs, who she believes is her killer, doesn't end the loop.]] It doesn't help that she keeps her injuries from the previous loop, including after-effects of however she was killed this time.

* Stephen Strange in ''Film/DoctorStrange2016'' exploits this against Dormammu. The Dark Dimension Dormammu rules/[[AnthropomorphicPersonification is]] doesn't have time, so Strange makes sure to bring it with him from Earth with the Eye of Agamotto. Endless, looped time. He intentionally traps himself and Dormammu in a potentially infinite time loop. While Strange can bear it, no matter how many times he is painfully tortured to death, Dormammu, who has no concept of time, cannot.
* ''Film/MeetCute'': Sheila insists on using a time machine to travel back to the same day and play out a first date with Gary over and over as an escape from her otherwise miserable life, but after a year of first dates, even she tires of the same thing over and over again, and Gary's flaws start to grate on her more and more, causing her to fall back into despair.

* ''Literature/BeforeIFall'': Sam suffers this a few times, but especially during the loop when [[spoiler:Juliet and Elody both die, from suicide and a car crash, respectively.]] It really hits hard since [[spoiler:Elody was sitting in the car seat that Sam was supposed to be sitting in.]]

'''O'Neill:''' I'm taking this loop off. I'm telling you, Teal'c. If we don't find a way out of this soon I'm going to lose it. ''[Teal'c looks confused]'' Lose it... it means go crazy, nuts, insane, bonzo, no longer in possession of one's faculties, three fries short of a happy meal, ''[holds up plate with smiley face drawn in condiments]'' '''[[SuddenlyShouting WACKO]]!'''

* ''VideoGame/NoOneHasToDie'' has [[spoiler:Troy. His confession to having killed the guards and started the fire is a lie -- he's [[DeathSeeker actively trying to get killed]] because he's gone through the events of the game ''five times'' before the game started, and after failing to save anyone else on any of the previous loops, he no longer has any will to live.]]

* This forms the core motivation for Mercurius' whole plan in ''VisualNovel/DiesIrae''. He has been stuck in his eternal recurrence for who knows how long, endlessly repeating the entire life of the universe millions, perhaps billions, of times and has learned everything that there is to know about everything. As a result, he has grown sick and tired of it all and simply wants the sweet release of death and cooks up a plan to have someone kill him and become his replacement as the God of the multiverse.

* ''WebComic/KillSixBillionDemons'' 6 Juggernaut Star and [[spoiler:Jagganoth, thanks to both of them being bound to {{Metatron}}]], have flawed RippleEffectProofMemory about [[spoiler:Zoss essentially SaveScumming the universe. Both are forced to play out their parts in the same HerosJourney, over and over again, until Zoss can find the right [[TheChosenOne Successor]] who can 'fix' the universe, all at the behest of Metatron puppeteering Zoss.]] As a result, they're both utterly broken and bitter individuals, 6 Juggernaut Star becoming a sociopathic fatalist whose only source of joy is tormenting people who can't remember and [[spoiler:Jagganoth being motivated to [[OmnicidalManiac omnicide]] in the hope that slaying Metatron will stop the cycle forever.]]

* Played With in ''WebVideo/EveryManHybrid''; while the three main characters are caught in an [[spoiler:endless cycle of iterations and restarts, dating back to at least the '60s,]] their memories also reset each time, leading to a bunch of [[RevealingContinuityLapse strange inconsistencies]] but no mental impact on them. However, at the end of the story fans uncovered clues that lead them to another character, who ''also'' was stuck in the loop but ''retained'' their memories; this character expressed exhaustion and frustration at the circumstances and admitted Vinny was lucky for not needing to remember everything.
* ''WebVideo/CalebCity'': In the video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LaYILqP9KA "Super Human Interview"]], one of the interviewees has the power to put people in a time loop. The interviewer suffers this trope when he gets trapped in one of these time loops, and the interviewee doesn't even remember creating the loop in the first place. The interviewer begs the interviewee to end the loop. [[PlayedforLaughs Played for laughs]].

* ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': A paradox causes a time loop in "As I Have Always Been", and it starts to get to the usually-unflappable Coulson. For one, the loops aren't unlimited -- time is still passing outside the ship the team is on, and it's headed for a NegativeSpaceWedgie. Coulson's the only one with full RippleEffectProofMemory, but he's asleep at the start of the loop and if he's not woken up then he misses out on the entire thing. Daisy also keeps her memories of the loops, but only if she doesn't die. By the time the episode ''starts'' he's already frustrated at losing so much time to loops where he has to bring Daisy back up to speed, if she even knew to wake him in the first place. And on top of everything else, he's in the middle of an existential crisis at the time.[[labelnote:Final season spoilers]]He's dealing with the fact that he's not the original Coulson, but a RidiculouslyHumanRobot and ReplacementGoldfish for him, using a mind upload in a robot body.[[/labelnote]]
* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "Heaven Sent" deconstructs the trope. A grieving Doctor is stuck in a trap where he must confess his DarkSecret. Rather than doing that he willingly subjects himself to a time loop where he dies and resurrects himself over the course ''4 billion years''. As the loops keep going, he gets more and more depressed and frustrated about this situation and wonders if he has the strength to keep torturing himself like this just for the sake of "winning" against his mysterious captors.
* In the ''Series/{{Eureka}}'' episode "I Do Over," Carter becomes trapped in a time loop on the day of Allison and Stark’s wedding. Every time the loop resets, Carter keeps his injuries, including shaving cuts and broken bones.

* ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'': In "Here I Go Again", after Zari does a "fun montage," she ends up locking herself in the main bridge with the bomb that sets off the whole reset. Turns out, this was a fake-out masterminded by the ship's AI, in order to make her feel at home on the ship. In another version, she finds Amaya and Nate about to have sex and says "Kill me now." right before the explosion. Also a ShoutOut to GroundhogDay, as Nate identifies is as such, and tells Zari to use that title to immediately let him know what is going on ''and'' prove that it is happening, in the continuing loops, as he will realise that she has never seen the film before that day that is looping for her.
* ''Series/{{The Librarians|2014}}'': In "And the Point of Salvation", Ezekiel becomes so fed up with watching his friends die that he tries to destroy the room the loop starts in. [[spoiler:This ends up letting him figure out that the team is in a video game.]]

* ''Series/TheMagicians2016'': The episode "Oops, I Did it Again", where Eliot and Margo are trapped in a time loop twelve hours before the end of the world. Eliot eventually becomes exhausted by their consistent failures to stop the apocalypse and retreats into parties, alcohol, and drugs while Margo sets off on her own. When she gets kicked out of the loop he is left by himself and falls into an even bigger HeroicBSOD before a talk with the GenreSavvy Josh (who loves time loop stories) gets him out of his funk.

** In the episode "Window of Opportunity", Teal'c is surprised that O'Neill isn't spending a loop trying to get out of it...

** A virtual reality version in "The Gamekeeper," the team are trapped in simulations of their worst memories, the death of Daniel's parents in an accident and a black ops mission of Jack's that went horribly wrong, but no matter what they do to try and change things the simulation throws something in that causes them to fail. After enough runs through they simply sit down and give up. The same thing happens to Teal'c when the tech is repurposed as a training sim in "Avatar."

** ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS5E23Relativity Relativity]]", it's established that repeated travel back and forth in time can have an adverse effect on the humanoid body. Seven of Nine is used to try and save ''Voyager'' but is so affected that the TimePolice have to enlist Janeway to stop the [[MonsteroftheWeek villain of the week.]]
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': Sam suffers this in the episode "Mystery Spot" after the loop forces him to watch his brother die over and over again in increasingly strange ways. What's worse is that Sam is never able to stop his brother's death.
* ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'': Xena was stuck in a time-loop, at one point, she got so sick of it that when Joxer enters the barn - which starts the day - she just kills him and goes back to sleep.

* The Jacob Geller video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZrEayPIrVE "Time Loop Nihilism"]] is dedicated to [[DiscussedTrope discussing]] the trope using ''VideoGame/DeathLoop'' and ''VideoGame/TwelveMinutes'', pointing out the effects time-loop gameplay has on both the PlayerCharacter and the player themselves.

* ''Videogame/BlazBlue:'' For those who are aware of the time loops in the first game -- Rachel and Terumi -- they found their lives being filled with massive boredom. Terumi, being the villain, is trying to find the way to break the loop so he can continue with his EvilPlan -- and the plot of the first game ends with the loop being broken, allowing him to be more active in pursuing his goals.

* ''Film/JaggedMind'': Being put in the time loops by Alex makes Billie suffer from blackouts, memory loss (so she doesn't clearly remember this happening), and progressive brain damage.

* ''Film/GroundhogDay'': Phil Connors becomes so exhausted by his time loop that he [[DrivenToSuicide attempts suicide]] multiple times. The loop continues anyway, and he springs back to life again none the worse for wear every time the day starts over. One scene where Rita identifies his body in the morgue raised many audience questions about how the loop works. The main problem Phil has is that he's trapped in this one Penssylvania town and all the highways are closed off due to the weather. There's only so much he can do before he gets bored out of his skull.

* ''Film/GroundhogDay'': Phil Connors becomes so exhausted by his time loop that he [[DrivenToSuicide attempts suicide]] multiple times. The loop continues anyway, and he springs back to life again none the worse for wear every time the day starts over. One scene where Rita identifies his body in the morgue raised many audience questions about how the loop works. The biggest problem Phil has is that he's trapped in this one Penssylvania town and all the highways are closed off due to the weather. There's only so much he can do before he gets bored out of his skull.

* ''Film/GroundhogDay'': Phil Connors becomes so exhausted by his time loop that he [[DrivenToSuicide attempts suicide]] multiple times. The loop continues anyway, and he springs back to life again none the worse for wear every time the day starts over. One scene where Rita identifies his body in the morgue raised many audience questions about how the loop works.

* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'': Homura ''definitely'' has this going on, going through who knows how many self-inflicted time loops trying and failing to save Madoka, and watching the same people die over and over again. She becomes a far cry from the sweet, innocent schoolgirl she was in the beginning. By the time of the main story, she's at her wit's end and Kyubey, who eventually realizes what's happening, gives her a BreakingSpeech before her lone battle against the witch that'll destroy the city. When she can't even scratch it despite her planning and weaponry, she can't even bring herself to start over again and is on the verge of turning into a witch herself. [[spoiler:Luckily Madoka likewise finds out what's going on and TakesAThirdOption to help break the loop...and the laws of reality with it.]]

* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'': [[spoiler:''Rika''.]] On the outside is the cheerful and innocent girl everyone loves. [[spoiler:On the inside is a girl who has been broken several times over from being [[AndIMustScream stuck in a time loop for centuries, witnessing the same people around her die repeatedly, and she herself being killed in every last timeline, all the while trying and failing to figure out how to escape it.]]]] Frederica Bernkastel's poem for the Atonement Arc lampshades this. The second time it happens, you're shocked, the third time you despair, but by the seventh, it becomes a comedy.

* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'': [[spoiler:''Rika''.]] On the outside is the cheerful and innocent girl everyone loves. [[spoiler:On the inside is a girl who has been broken several times over from being [[AndIMustScream stuck in a time loop for centuries, witnessing the same people around her die repeatedly, and she herself being killed in every last timeline, all the while trying and failing to figure out how to escape it.]]]]

* ''Film/JaggedMind'': Being put in the time loops by Alex makes Billie suffer from blackouts, memory loss (so she doesn't clearly remember this happening, and progressive brain damage.

** ''[[Series/StarTrekDiscovery Discovery]]'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekDiscoveryS1E07MagicToMakeTheSanestManGoMad Magic To Make The Sanest Men Go Mad]]", the the only person aware of the loop isn't main character Michael Burnham but Lt. Paul Stamets, who did some illegal alien DNA experimentation on himself several episodes before and is, as of the episode, developing weird time-perception issues while not yet really understanding what is happening to him. Because Stamets isn't the viewpoint character of the episode and the action doesn't stay with him, the episode instead shows the cumulative effects of the loop having each of Stamets' scenes in order from his point of view. Early in the episode he's at the "...didn't we already have this conversation?" stage; slightly later he's progressed to [[YouHaveToBelieveMe panicked ranting]]; as the danger to the ship increases, he's settled down into a sort of weary calmness (and pitch-black humor) at sharp odds with his crewmates' despair; by the last loops he's exhausted, sick to death of explaining things and watching people die, and nearly ready to give up.

** ''[[Series/StarTrekDiscovery Discovery]]: In "[[Recap/StarTrekDiscoveryS1E07MagicToMakeTheSanestManGoMad Magic To Make The Sanest Men Go Mad]]", the the only person aware of the loop isn't main character Michael Burnham but Lt. Stamets, who did some illegal alien DNA experimentation several episodes before. Because Stamets isn't the viewpoint character of the episode, the episode shows the cumulative effects of the loop by presenting the scenes in order from Stamets' point of view. Early in the episode he's at the "...didn't we already have this conversation?" stage; slightly later he's progressed to [[YouHaveToBelieveMe panicked ranting]]; as the danger to the ship increases, he's settled down into a sort of weary calmness at sharp odds with his crewmates' despair; and he ends up exhausted, sick to death of explaining things, and nearly ready to give up by the time they find a solution.

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS5E23Relativity Relativity]]", it's established that repeated travel back and forth in time can have an adverse effect on the humanoid body. Seven of Nine is used to try and save ''Voyager'' but is so affected that the TimePolice have to enlist Janeway to stop the [[MonsteroftheWeek villain of the week.]]

* ''VisualNovel/RagingLoop''. Main character Haruaki gets trapped in a time loop and is forced to re-live the Yomibito Feast (essentially a real-life game of TabletopGame/Werewolf1997) over and over again where the wolves change every loop. Haruaki develops a certain sense of fatalism and detatchment over the whole thing since the people who die (including Haruaki, multiple times) inevitably come back again and again with none of them the wiser. [[spoiler:Two other villagers have already been trapped in the loop far, far longer than Haruaki has, and have gone somewhat mad as a result -- cracking their MaskOfSanity is an important part of the game's later loops.]]

* The Endless Eight Arc in the second season of ''[[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' has the world go through the same two weeks over and over thanks to an unwitting Haruhi Suzumiya...''15,532 times''. That's about 595 years of doing the same things over and over. And Yuki Nagato is the only one aware of what's happening from the beginning but is forbidden by her superior the Data Overmind from any interference because her job is to observe. For a character who would be the poster child of the EmotionlessGirl trope if we didn't already know she has emotions that are just heavily suppressed and difficult for her to express, the fact that even casual viewers can see visible fatigue on her face is enough to tell us that she's right up against the DespairEventHorizon at her situation and if she had a regular human's emotiveness she would probably be a sobbing mess crumpled into a fetal position on the floor. [[spoiler:This is almost certainly the reason why Yuki steals Haruhi's powers and alters the world so that everyone has normal lives and Haruhi is PutOnABus in the ''Disappearance'' story arc after "Endless Eight" -- she is ''that'' sick and tired of what she had gone through.]]

* ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'': In "Endless Eight", the SOS Brigade is trapped in a time loop covering the last two weeks of summer. They go through the loop ''over 15,000 times'' before breaking it. Fortunately for their sanity, most of them don't retain memories of the past loops, apart from déjà vu. The exception is the alien EmotionlessGirl Nagato, who recalls everything with superhuman clarity. The toll this takes on her comes up in ''Disappearance'', [[spoiler:when her fatigue with her duties causes her to alter reality so that the Brigade never met.]]
* ''LightNovel/ReZero'': Subaru gets thrown back in time whenever he dies. While it's not strictly a time loop as he can get out of it by simply not dying, it affects him badly all the same, especially if he [[ILetGwenStacyDie fails to save his friends]], with at least one death leaving him [[HeroicBlueScreenOfDeath little more than a vegetable]] for most of the next loop. The first time he dies at pretty much any time affects him much harder than his future failed attempts at avoiding the same (or roughly same) death.

* ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': A paradox causes a time loop in "As I Have Always Been", and it starts to get to the usually-unflappable Coulson. For one, the loops aren't unlimited -- time is still passing outside the ship the team is on, and it's headed for a NegativeSpaceWedgie. Coulson's the only one with full RippleEffectProofMemory, but he's asleep at the start of the loop and if he's not woken up then he misses out on the entire thing. Daisy also keeps her memories of the loops, but only if she doesn't die. By the time the episode ''starts'' he's already frustrated at losing so much time to loops where he has to bring Daisy back up to speed, if she even knew to wake him in the first place. And on top of everything else, he's in the middle of an existential crisis at the time.[[labelnote:Final season spoilers]]He's dealing with the fact that he's not the original Coulson, but a RidiculouslyHumanRobot and ReplacementGoldfish for him.[[/labelnote]]

* ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'': In "Here I Go Again", after Zari does a "fun montage," she ends up locking herself in the main bridge with the bomb that sets off the whole reset. Turns out, this was a fake-out masterminded by the ship's AI, in order to make her feel at home on the ship. In another version, she finds Amaya and Nate about to have sex and says "Kill me now." right before the explosion.

Note that this usually only happens if you can [[RippleEffectProofMemory ''retain'' the memories of each loop]]. Sometimes you might be one of the lucky (or some would say, unlucky) ones who doesn't know if there's even a time loop in the first place, as they may not realize that they have done "similar things" before.