UNLUCKY MANSION

A spur of the moment kind of thing! It's been literal years since I compiled my faves into bingos and I figured I'd lightly talk about some general ~observations~ about them and whatnot.



Of course, there's the forever faves who are always mainstays in my brain like Yuki (Fruits Basket; top left corner) and Adam Parrish (The Raven Cycle; top right corner). The Taste Determiners TM for a younger me who was so taken with their stories. An immediate grouping that comes to mind is Adam, Qiyan (Clear and Muddy Loss of Love; first row/second column) and Akechi (Persona 5 Royale; one of the two pictured in the final row/fourth column). Obviously, I care deeply about any character on this list but I'm so fond of these three in particular as characters who are irreversibly othered, battle-worn, calculative, weary from survival, 'impure' compared to other specific 'pure' characters and every part of themselves is damningly self-built minus what was forcibly taken from them. I didn't include Kurapika (hunter x hunter) because it's been so long, but he'd be with them too. While we're on the topic of mainstays, I'd also mention Yuki and Fang Juexia (Fanservice Paradox; fourth row/fifth column) are similar to me for their more reserved personalities. They are "boring" and "passive" but these notions are interrogated in favor seeing their strengths. All the while they grow into themselves and become more confident.

Phos (Land of the Lustrous; bottom row/second column), Risu (Dorohedero; fourth row/first column) and Talulah (Arknights; third row/first column) also go together in my head! These are characters whose identities and bodies are viscerally transformed in a way that leaves ME feeling out of breath. I enjoy this exploration of how identity is tied to the physical body and the horror of what happens when those are messed with by outside circumstances. There's new losses (people, surroundings, parts of yourself, memories, trauma from the loss of autonomy etc.), but there's new gains too (regaining autonomy, progression towards understanding yourself or becoming a better version, new relationships etc.). Here, I'd like to give a brief shoutout to that one Genshin world quest in Inazuma where a tanuki disguises itself as someone's daughter and the parents don't know as well as Tingyun from Honkai Star Rail.

Kevin Day (All For the Game; bottom left corner) and Maya Fey (Ace Attorney; first row/third column) are the centers of their respective stories even when they're actually only side characters who are often forgotten outside of jokes or propping up other characters!! The experience of realizing that is one of a kind. They both have so many ties to so many other characters/plot points and they are often the catalyst of their respective stories as well. They are loved by many, targeted by many others (often because of how loved they are) and their love for others also plays such a big role. You might get their schticks, but there's so much more to them if you dare to think about the Implications. I personally love how there's so much to say about being saved by others/saving others with regards to Kevin and Maya :>.

I care about Mitsumi (Skip and Loafer; fourth row/third column), Juwan (No home; third row/last column) and Joker (Persona 5 Royale; final row/fourth column) as characters who bring other people together and are the glue of that friend group. I am drawn to The Observer characters who land on the fringes of their casts where they study everyone else such as Nana (Revue Starlight; third row/second column), Obi (Snow White with the Red Hair; fourth row/second column) and Adam. A lot of private grief there too. Some like Matoba (Natsume Yuujinchou; free space), Ryo (Bocchi the Rock; second row/first column) and Shinobu (Chihayafuru; second row/fourth column) are on here simply for being cute as hell. Another character archetype I love is what I call the de-tool/chill pilled-ers which is not so clearly seen here outside of Ratio (Honkai Star Rail; second row/last column).

I don't want to go too far with this because I could genuinely write more about it elsewhere but also I do think these characters are individual and stand on their own.

Recently, I realized that I quite like time loops actually. Which came at a bit of surprise? Since I’m pretty lukewarm when it comes to time-tampering stories. A brief perusal through the TV tropes time travel page kind of reminded me of why…First, let’s clarify some terms. Time loops can refer to “Groundhog Day” loops where a character is caught in a loop until something is corrected or stable time loops where a time travel event occurs. Both of these fall under the category of time travel tropes, of which there are many more.

A lot of time travel stories seem to offer the chosen trope as the entire meal as opposed to being a vehicle that serves that specific story (so I guess the silver platter to keep the analogy going). I can understand why seeing as time travel gives you the stakes and the fun plot movements and sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes it’s enough for me too, but I just also think it’s true that at times, time travel stories can feel cheap, already exhausted or too convoluted to even have a point. It’s a shame really! Because I do think there are certain beats or themes time travel tropes can really nail down like the harsh absoluteness and impermanence of space-time, feelings of unreality, the sense of grief etc.

On some level, not-time loop time traveling stories and time loop time traveling stories have a fair amount of similarities (you can time travel multiple times out of free will after all + accidental time travel is a thing). They can also encompass a lot of the points the other can make. So I think a lot of the general criticisms regarding time travel tropes can be said for both. (Note: I don’t think a trope is inherently bad or anything. It’s very much about how you use them. I am always open to the successful execution of a trope I dislike.) I just find that personally, non-time loop time traveling stories don’t often use their tropes well in a way that invites interesting commentary. Time loops have some more working ground.

There’s some key distinctions between not-time loop time traveling stories and time loop time traveling stories (to me). Keep in mind that there’s still a lot of overlap. I’m not quite saying not-time loop time travel stories don’t feature any of what I’m about to say…it’s just that I think time loop stories In Particular excel at these vibes. I’ll be talking about “Groundhog Day” time loops here.

✷ With time loops, you really deliciously feel the way the character is stripped of their agency. Looping gets boring quickly, bordering on maddening and that’s before you introduce any additional horror elements. The mechanism and tools to handle a time loop are obscured. At the same time, the entire point is for characters to face the repetition of their life and go through the grilling agony of trial and error anyways. Their only saving grace is their agency and freedom to try different things. That’s why it’s so dreadful the more repeats they live through. Even with the advantage of knowing what will happen, the guarantee of more chances, being more shielded from the consequences, that character is still stuck in a ceaseless loop. It’s a fun combination, one that maximizes desperation. There’s something very human in that. The battling forces between what is in your control and what isn’t. Not knowing the future (the ultimate fate of the loop) even when they know the future. Trying and giving up and trying again. We think of our good friend Sisyphus yet again.

✷ I love the sense of sincere sense of wrongness that exudes from the time loop itself. Just like the dead coming back to life, this is breaking the fundamental laws of life itself because time must move forward. We don’t get a redo. It’s heretical and it’s so integral to the atmosphere. (Other not-time loop time travel stories sometimes accept time travel like it’s natural. Not a bad thing. The wrongness in these types of stories may come from different sources - like the tension surrounding a fixed event that Must Not Be Changed.)

✷ The necessity to correct something itself is just. So. Ahhhh!!!! From the unseen forces, it can be such a kind and/or cruel thing. Asinexplicable as any of the unfolding sequences of life that occur in the first place. You can question what happens in the normal timeline, but being in a time loop and having virtually an unlimited amount of chances is something that itself can be questioned. Whatever conclusion you or that character comes to, it says so much about a world whose workings are beyond us! It’s about the whims of it all, your honor. You don’t have to understand why you’re in a time loop to try and fix it (or give up trying).

✷The small differences between loops are endlessly endearing to me. There’s value in how a single loop and all its little pieces play out because the precise way everything happened doesn’t repeat in 100% the same way. Yes, it’s mostly the same. In all the way it matters, it can be the same. But it’s not. It almost falls in line with the “It happened. Maybe only one person remembers it or maybe none do. It matters that it happened anyways.” type of sentiment.

✷ Time loops feel also feel more susceptible to “gamification”. It becomes a game, if not for the character, then at least a little bit for us. You become aware of the rules, but just like playing a video game, it doesn’t always go in the way you’d expect. There’s true fun in seeing how a character saying or doing different things will lead to different dialogue/action sequences. There’s depth waiting to be unlocked in the surface of their life if they choose to do so. There’s your entertainment value. In addition, the nature of time loops makes it harder to lose the plot. There’s plenty of “game format” stories if you look at the isekai/reincarnation/whatever genres and they easily get out of hand as they move towards more complex plots. With time loops, however…the details come to matter. You work with what you got. You don’t see the solution, but it’s there. There’s no easy way to come to it, but it’s there.

✷ This all lends itself so well to character study in my opinion. Time loops have such range when you think about it. There are some common themes that might be touched upon regardless, but what you explore and the movements made are unique based on the characters and story itself. It can be as serious or unserious as you want it to be. It can occur in different settings. Everything I’ve mentioned above can be utilized differently. So on and so forth.

There’s a few (“Groundhog Day”) time loop stories I want to talk about just to display the range of the trope.

✷ So basically there’s this one raven cycle fic that kind of prompted me to write this whole thing lol. It’s about two characters, grieving their own life circumstances, who each dislike the other because of their own insecurities (they’re also not very nice to each other), surrounded by their mutual friends and not-friends at a party. They both end up repeating the day which always ends in their deaths. Time loops that lean into the trauma of it all ♡ The reason I bring it up is because the character work here is so lovely. Recognizing the value of yourself, friends and family that was once easily dismissed is done so well here.

✷ Integral to the conversation is kagerou days, a song that’s a part of a larger vocaloid series. It’s a visual classic to me in terms of what a time loop can be. The grief, the horror, the love, the lack of a logical answer. I listened to it a lot at 12.

✷ A story I want to mention here is surviving romance. It’s a time loop story that works alongside the isekai-into-a-fictional-story concept so you get additional commentary on the nature of genres. Here we see how time loop stories can have additional actors that aren’t allies. The connections that are built take a different route as everyone begins virtually strangers to the main character.

✷ Not to talk about another fanfiction, but…I do want to touch on this ace attorney 4 fic. Some context is necessary. The main character is Apollo, a newbie defense lawyer tasked with investigating cases and participating in trials. The time loop here is very much about the details of the case. Each loop ends with the death of the wrongly-accused defendant and with each round, the truth comes closer to light/the trial progresses. Time loops can play around a lot with plots that manifest in different forms. The necessity to correct something wrong aspect excels here and it works wonderfully with ace attorney’s main themes of not wanting to be a bystander to tragedy and dealing with the weight of past tragedies, obscured by time and the legacy of those before you.

✷ I was wondering if I should even mention these two games because it’s been such a long time since I played them, but I feel like they’re worth mentioning. Life is Strange and Ghost Trick don’t exactly fit in this category, but a significant part of their gameplay are these little pockets where a “puzzle” must be solved pr plot point must be followed through on and it loops until the player can succeed. There’s something really interesting about how time travel/time loops function in a game with player input versus in a medium that lacks that. It creates immersion (though…if you’re good at the game and get it on your first try…maybe not lol), particularly in the manner of there being memory of this secret effort to keep the machination of things rolling. The progression of the story has more weight because of the “unseen” effort baked in. It took so much to get there. I like that concept.

I didn’t mention it before, but as you can see, finding relief in an ally and saving other people are also common things you see with time loops. The things that drive a person :’].

On a final note, stories in general are very much about people, their psyche and the human condition in this world. Time loops are a vehicle for this and it’s interesting to think about how everything a time loop can achieve is something people can and do feel in their very-much-not-looping lives.