The Infinite Loops

So no one has made a thread the infinite loops? *sigh*

For those not in the know: The premise is that something has happened to Yggdrasil, the World Tree computer that contains and runs the multiverse. As a result, the various universes have been put in 'safe mode', time-looping until Yggdrasil can be repaired. Each universe's loop is maintained by the presence of an Anchor, a core person from that loop who is the first to notice their universe is looping. There is always an Anchor in a Loop.

Isn't that the fic that got super popular and started spawning spinoffs, many of which were absolutely terrible and which caused some to question whether the original was even decent to begin with?

It reminds me too much of Chunin Exam Day for me to give them an honest chance. Which isn't helped by the fact that they usually star the common Marty Stu suspects.

In my experience, once the Anchors start dragging their friends into the loops the Marty Stu stuff fades a little, as it just generally becomes ridiculous but evenly across the board.

There are multiple writers for each fandom who are very tight-knit so I highly doubt that you'll find something of Perfect Lionhart's (Or whatever that d-bag calls himself these days.) 'quality'.

I think the first story related to the Infinite Loops I read involved an implausible harem. I can't remember what it was, but I seem to recall it being a crossover.

It was probably a Ranma crossover, 'cause I recall laughing at the sheer implausibility of the harem choice.

I remember reading a Naruto fic like this called Time Braid. I thought it was pretty good.

Yeah, but see, that one starred Sakura, and was not a shipping fic. That's avoiding the number 1 redflag of 'loops', which is that they're almost always there just to facilitate the main character becoming a giant stu.

http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/jojos-bizarre-time-loops.283857/

My favorite snip is with Johnny and Gyro.

I'm not sure if this counts as a necro but I would like to give my two cents. Yes a lot of the loops are just silly dribbles or Mary sue type stuff, however, there are writers out there who try to use the loops to make serious pieces for exploring characters and showing how they develop. The best example I am aware of is in the Shin Megami Tensei loop thread on spacebattles.

The main character of Nocturne- Naoki has had an unpleasent time in the loops. He has never been able to prevent the end of the world that kicks off the start of his loop and hasn't been able to save his friends in any of his loops. Repeat this a few billion times, combined with the fact none of his friends have started looping weighed heavy on him. This eventually came to head after he encountered the Conversion Bureau and then ended up in Equestrian as a pony not long after. The author is currently writing about how he is going to recover from this.

Just give the loops a try. You never know what you might like.

To be honest, I don't really like this stuff. I read a grand total of one IL fic and the only thing it taught me is that I don't like craze just for the sake of craze. Crazy Awesome is good, but only in controlled doses; doing it all the time eventually gives me the impression that the author is desperate to retain his audience.

It's not the time travel thing I have trouble with, it's the IL premise itself. If time just keeps rewinding over and over again, there is absolutely no point to anything the protagonist does because it won't stick, nor is there any point to character development either because if the looping would ever end, it wouldn't be called Infinite Loops. Therefore, the whole premise is completely pointless and the only thing separating it from being a stereotypical badfic is that it's not a self-insert.

edited 8th Nov '15 10:46:20 AM by amitakartok

That is actually addressed by some authors. The wacky shananigans are at least partly how characters try to deal with the loops. Sakura Haruno actually fell pray to the whole "If everthing resets it doesn't matter what I do" mindset. She became a morally void mad scientist who scares the crap out of pretty much everyone. She has been making progress in recovering but she still haas relapses even millenia later.

You know what would be an interesting story concept?

Standard crazy loop shenanigans at first, except this time time doesn't rewind. The characters are waiting and waiting and waiting... then an Yggdrasil admin shows up and goes "oh, we managed to fix the problem so you're not looping anymore but forgot to notify you, sorry for the inconvenience".

Cue massive Oh, Crap!.

It could be interesting... Any particular group in mind?

That does sound hilarious.

The Johnny/Gyro snippet above is really good, but it exemplifies exactly why the IL fics fail: the concept can only really work on an extremely limited scope, and even then only for a snippet or two.

Without those two conditions, the story very quickly spirals into Crack Fic territory, and all the characters that get involved naturally become God Mode Sues with all the knowledge and abilities they obtain. As much as I've tried, I just cannot get into them, because everyone shares familiar names but have become completely unrecognizable from the characters I know.

Sakura Haruno in particular feels like they took a universally-accepted Scrappy and kicked her down as far as they could, and it's just upsetting, y'know?

edited 13th Nov '15 7:04:01 AM by Watchtower

Yes I do know what you mean. I think that got started by Innortal's original loops and the later authors were forced to go along with it and trying to make the best of it.

So, found out this thread is now a thing. I'd just like to say, as a former writer for this, I wish I had never started my compilation for it.

I was the head writer for the Spyro loops, and instead of going along with the norm, I actually attempted to do something different with this setting. Yes, I had the dreaded "wacky shenanigans" but at the same time I attempted to get something meaningful out of the characters. Instead of brushing off characters problems in the span of a single snippet, I brought them to the forefront.

Unlike the other stories, the characters didn't instant Sue up the baseline. They have great difficulty improving their baseline situations, and more often than not could only improve their situation enough to where it was bearable. For the most part, most of the humor derived from the flat-out bizarre variants and them reacting to the general insanity of the setting. They were the kinds of characters who weren't the pranking and shenanigans type, and it took them quite a while before they could overcome their problems, often requiring to face themselves by themselves. They may have had the help of their friends, but only they could fix their own problems when it came down to it, and in the end, they came out better beings because of it.

And all along the way, I got nothing but s*** from other compilation writers for taking this route. Pretty much every idea I had that wasn't "wacky and hilarious" Mary Sue shenanigans I had to fight an uphill battle to get it submitted. Every time I did something different, someone whined about it. Try to explore the effects of a non-looper finding out about the loops and how it affects them? Someone whines about it.

Try to have a villain, looping or otherwise? Someone whines about it.

Do something that contradicts some obscure fact in a compilation you have no interest in reading? You can be damned sure the head writer for that compilation will whine about it... Even if it's some fact that affects the loops at large that they didn't check with the head community first before forcing it as canon on everyone else.

Hell, commit the unholy sin of daring to edit the TV Tropes page for info about your own compilation? Hope you brought some ear plugs because you're going to get a lot of people b****ing about it soon after.

It wasn't even for my own compilation either. Once I tried to submit a FiM snippet as a way to drum up some support to a Kickstarter game I was interested in. Literally the second after I posted it, I got someone b****ing at me because I didn't have Twilight magically know a smoke grenade was going to be thrown in the window and to teleport it away as soon as it hit and then curb stomping the villain she had never seen before in five seconds, citing it as "common sense". Because it's common sense being trapped in a time loop gives you magical grenade sensing abilities and takes away your ability to be shocked about things. Maybe in Mary Suetopia...

I'm not taking a dig at my readers, reviewers, or the people who stuck with me while I was writing my compilation. They were absolutely wonderful and their support was what helped me keep going throughout the crap I had to deal with as the head of a compilation. The people who wrote for my compilation as well were amazing. They supported my ideas of trying something different with the setting and had amazing ideas of their own that used it in ways I didn't think of. Even if it resulted in the Story Arc I was writing to become bloated and go on for two years because they kept adding ideas to it.

I just... Ugh. This is not a healthy fan community. Not even remotely. Fallout: Equestria is a healthy fan community. Want to do something different with it? No one minds. Don't want to read through 5,000,000 something word stories for some obscure factoid? No problem. You get to pick and choose what you get to consider canon in your fics.

The loop? Ha... Ha... Ha. The loops can be summed up as everyone trying to enforce their viewpoints and canon on everyone else and throwing a temper tantrum when they don't get their way. I was still getting these reactions even when a mod who was threatening to lock all the compilation threads because of that exact behavior and the sheer clusterf**k way they handle canon was present.

That was the final straw. I couldn't write for this anymore. The whole reason I joined in the first place was because I wanted it to be a fun side project to blow off steam, but it ended up eating up all my time, grinding the other stories I was writing to a halt, and I just wasn't enjoying it anymore. The whole reason I turned to fic writing over R Ping was to get away from this drama bullcrap.

I've pretty moved on at this point, but the entire nightmare this had seriously affected my writing. Where I use to be able to write chapters in a few hours span, I can barely bring myself to write a paragraph anymore in an entire day. The amount of pressure I was under in the time I was in their really stagnated my ability to write to, and I'm only just now starting to recover from it.

The only thing I want to do related to this series anymore is to give my compilation something of an ending for the readers who stuck with me while I was writing through this drama bullcrap. I haven't even told the rest of the community about it yet because I know I'm going to get people screaming at me in caps because of it, even though it's going to fall on f**king deaf ears. I want to improve my writing. I want to be able to one day write a serious novel. I know I'm not perfect, and that's why I use fics to get a good grasp on the basic of story writing and telling... And that's something I can't do in this community.

tl;dr version: F**k the Infinite Loops.

Edit: Sorry for going into rant mode about this. This has been something that I've been shouldering for quite a few years now, and I didn't mean for it to explode here of all places. I just... I'd rather forget that these compilations ever existed. If nothing else, it made me aware of how limiting writing time loop stories really are, even without behind the scenes drama.

edited 24th Nov '15 2:48:59 PM by TokoWH

This has actually been a good help I've been thinkinf about joining the loops community to work on my writing. You've really made me rethink this. I think I'll look else where for a place to practice. The loops may stay as something of a guilty pleasure though.

I wouldn't suggest people attempt to get into a time loop story join this one. Write your own one separate from this community if you really want to write one. I speak from experience. There are still so many things I wanted to do with my setting, but can't because of this community and it's absolute clusterf**k way of handling the canon of over twenty or so different compilations.

I speak from experience. It may seem like wacky, carefree shenanigans on the surface, but once you go behind the curtain, you'll begin hating yourself for it.