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"Don't do anything that affects anything, unless it turns out you were supposed to do it, in which case, for the love of God, don't not do it."
— Professor Farnsworth, Futurama, "Roswell That Ends Well"

Through Applied Phlebotinum, Functional Magic, or some other means, our heroes travel back to the past. In the past, they wind up being responsible for the very events that underpin their own "present." This creates a chicken-and-egg scenario, in which the looping sequence of events has no clear beginning. The result of breaking the law zero of time travel: do not cause the event you went back to prevent.

This is sometimes referred to a "time loop" paradox, particularly when a character, object, or piece of information was never originally created, but exists solely because of its own existence. Also known as a "bootstrap paradox," from the classic Heinlein short story, By His Bootstraps. It's also called an "ontological paradox" on that other Wiki.

Tricked Out Time is when you "change" the past on purpose to resemble this.

Contrast Temporal Paradox. Compare You Cant Fight Fate, Wayback Trip, Timey Wimey Ball.

Examples:

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     Anime and Manga  

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