History Main / TimeyWimeyBall

Of course, sometimes they aren't. The Timey-Wimey Ball is the result of a series or movie where the writers are a wee bit confused or forgetful about exactly ''which'' kind of time travel can happen, sometimes within the span of one episode! One day YouCantFightFate because YouAlreadyChangedThePast (or at least not without the ButterflyOfDoom coming along), but the next you can ScrewDestiny and SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong by [[HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct killing Hitler]] and changing the past for the better... at least until the ClockRoaches get hungry. Especially headachy because there's no TemporalParadox, or if there is it's totally arbitrary.

* ''ComicBook/{{Iznogoud}}'': In ''Iznogoud's Childhood'', Iznogoud experiments a type of time travel in which the present and the past happen at the same time for a while, which he tries to exploit by attempting to get rid of the Caliph's younger self. The whole thing eventually ends up being a StableTimeLoop, in which Iznogoud's time travel is what causes his younger self (who UsedToBeASweetKid) to transform into the JerkAss we're familiar with. However, earlier in the comic, Iznogoud stabs younger Wa'at Alahf to test the time travelling nature, and that case works on a RippleEffect basis, in which adult Wa'at Alahf shows up with a scar he'd never had.
* ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes''. [[ContinuitySnarl There's three of them.]] ''Two'' of their enemies are the {{Anthropomorphic Personification}}s of the Timey-Wimey Ball. A good instance of this happened in the ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis'' side-story ''Legion of 3 Worlds''. Superman, Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy confront the Time Trapper (one of those two enemies above) and learn this incarnation (long story) is a future Superboy-Prime. When the Time Trapper and Prime meet, Trapper's insistence on getting Prime to listen to him causes Prime to get angry and slug him, causing a NeverTheSelvesShallMeet explosion that erases the Trapper and causes Prime to disappear. Saturn Girl worries they just broke their ThouShaltNotKill rule, but three different Brainiac 5s suggest that Prime just disappeared somewhere else in time/space instead.

* In ''Fanfic/HuntersOfJustice'', [[ComicBook/TheLegionOfSuperheroes Saturn Girl]] explains that thanks to [[CloseEnoughTimeline the Flashpoint Paradox]], the 21st century is a complete jumble of possibilities mashed together, making it next to impossible to accurately tell what's meant to happen between the 1940s and the 31st century. Legionaries are stationed all throughout the world in the past to monitor the flow of history and report back to their native time to keep accurate records. This is also [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall a subtle nod]] to the ''many'' {{Continuity Reboot}}s ''DC Comics'' has had in its long history.

* The ''Series/Charmed1998'' fic "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6250877/1/Tempus-Fugit Tempus Fugit]]" opens with Paige and Henry surviving the final battle and going back in time to save Piper and Phoebe, only to overshoot and end up going back to the moment when Prue was killed by Shax. Paige sacrifices herself to protect Prue, only surviving long enough to cast the vanquishing spell to defeat Shax, but the Elders subsequently ‘merge’ Henry with his past self, and Paige’s spirit evades the Angel of Death and does the same with her own younger self, allowing them to retain their memories of the future (although Henry naturally only knows what Paige already told him about the past and Paige’s memories are fragmentary).

* In ''Fanfic/TheOtherSideMemoriaeterna'', where basically the other half of the universe survived the Snap, when the new group of heroes attempt the "time heist" to retrieve the stones, Peter, Wanda and Strange arrive on Vormir [[spoiler:at the moment that the canon Steve Rogers went there to return the Soul Stone following the events of Film/AvengersEndgame. Peter speculates that this happened because both groups travelled back to a point before their two timelines diverged, allowing them to visit the ‘same’ past]].

** Say the word "Kang" to a fan and they'll often shudder. His time-travel schemes are so complex that his future self, Immortus, is another major Avengers enemy, and the two can often be seen fighting each other. To give a sense of scale: most Marvel Handbook profiles are one to three pages long except for major characters like [[Characters/SpiderManPeterParker Spider-Man]], ComicBook/IronMan or Characters/{{Wolverine|JamesLoganHowlett}}. Kang's gets ''six pages'', and the bottom half of each page is devoted to Kang's timeline, which is chronological in years but requires jumping around from page to page to get Kang's chronological story.

* The ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'' fic "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4988947/1/Born-to-Fight Born to Fight]]" ultimately deconstructs this; as it turns out, there is only one singular timeline, with the apparent conflicting memories of travellers such as Jesse and Derek the result of either one party not knowing all the facts or another having his memories wiped to escape certain painful recollections.

%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks!

%%Request made and permission granted in Ask The Tropers.

Excepting [[TheSlowPath mundane travel from the past to the future at a rate of one second per second]],[[note]]For all you physics buffs out there, yes, this does imply that TimeTravel is unitless (or dimensionless, if you want to get really technical)[[/note]][[note]]modulo some time dilation as observed from a non–co-moving frame[[/note]] no human has ever experienced TimeTravel first hand. Indeed, we don't know if it's even possible.[[note]]Albert Einstein's mathematics show, and countless data confirm, that it is achievable by TimeDilation through accelerating to high speeds, but only towards the future and without a way back. We also know that gravity slows down time, meaning that if you are in space your one second per second would be negligibly faster than on earth. Astronauts on the ISS travel ten milliseconds into the future every year as the higher velocity effect outweighs the lower gravity effect.[[/note]] So debating [[OurTimeTravelIsDifferent which time travel]] [[TemporalMutability theory is right]] is much like trying to find the best flavor of Kool-Aid. Fans [[BellisariosMaxim are aware and accepting of this]], just like no one minds when OurMonstersAreDifferent, or two different series have [[FunctionalMagic different rules for magic,]] so long as the series' [[MagicAIsMagicA own internal rules are consistent.]]

* In ''Series/{{Castle}}'' fic "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9654165/1/Flashforward Flashforward]]", Kate Beckett of 2012 swaps places with her 2009 self, but when she attempts to follow up on the leads she's found on her mother's case in the future, she is killed by Senator Bracken's assassins, her death in 2009 erasing her 2009 self in the future and creating a timeline where America is on the brink of war with China. Fortunately, a time-travelling agent (employed by the organisation featured in "[[Recap/CastleS6E5TimeWillTell Time Will Tell]]") is able to recruit the Castle of the new 2012 and send him back to save Beckett's life, which results in a new version of 2012 where Montgomery survived his retirement and was able to provide information to confirm Bracken's role in Johanna Beckett's death in exchange for immunity for himself.

** During Bendis' run on two Avengers titles he floated the idea that time is both like a living thing(which it technically is, embodied by the SentientCosmicForce that is Infinity) that occurs all at once and is damaged by time travel. These theories were hypothesized by Iron Man during conflicts with Kang after one time travel too many to change one moment and defeat Ultron [[TimeCrash broke the spacetime continuum]] and collided multiple potential futures and parallel realities with their present. This would be revisited (or recycled based on how cynical one is) during ''ComicBook/AgeOfUltron'' where another conflict with Ultron involving too much time travel led to another crash. This time the effects were further reaching, where instead multiple people in parallel universes were struck dead and others still were permanently shuffled around the multiverse.

Of course, sometimes they aren't. The Timey-Wimey Ball is the result of a series or movie where the writers are a wee bit confused or forgetful about exactly ''which'' kind of time travel can happen, sometimes within the span of one episode! One day YouCantFightFate because YouAlreadyChangedThePast (or at least not without the ButterflyOfDoom or ClockRoaches coming along), but the next you can ScrewDestiny and SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong by [[HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct killing Hitler]] and changing the past for the better. Especially headachy because there's no TemporalParadox, or if there is it's totally arbitrary.

* Discussed in ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'': Grace [[http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=254 expresses confusion]] about how in ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' Marty is affected by the DelayedRippleEffect and while at the same time possessing RippleEffectProofMemory. Justin tells her that the sequels don't make sense of this inconsistency and further that time travel is not allowed to make sense.

* [[https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Limbo_(Temporal) Limbo]] in the Marvel Universe (mainly shows up in association with ''ComicBook/XMen'') is an entire ''dimension'' of timey-wimeyness. When the X-Men entered and got separated, both Wolverine and Colossus encountered long-dead versions of each other, and managed to escape just fine in the end. [[Characters/MarvelComicsStorm Storm]] was stopped at one point by her older self, who had remained in Limbo for decades studying magic. And [[Characters/MarvelComicsNightcrawler Nightcrawler}} killed his older self.

* ''ComicBook/AllNewXMen'' had a hard time deciding whether they were changing the timeline, creating a new one, creating several new ones, or just messing everything up – OR [[YouAlreadyChangedThePast whether it had all already happened]]. Both this book and the tie-in ''ComicBook/BattleOfTheAtom'' had the added conundrum that while people from the past who were still alive in the present (and one who was dead in the present) were visiting the present, so were a bunch of people from the future, at least one of whom [[spoiler:was presently visiting from the past. Several times]].

** Kang's schemes also led to the temporally complex events of ''ComicBook/AvengersForever'', when Kang's attempt to prevent himself becoming Immortus led to a conflict which featured seven Avengers from ''six'' different time periods coming together to help Kang protect Rick Jones from Immortus and prevent humanity's darker possible futures (this team included Captain America from the end of the original ''Secret Empire'' storyline, Hawkeye just after ''ComicBook/TheKreeSkrullWar'', Yellowjacket during his initial mental breakdown, Giant-Man and the Wasp from Rick's present, and Songbird and Genis-Vell from what appear to have been possible futures). At the halfway point the plot stops just to explain Kang's history. It takes a whole issue.

Excepting [[TheSlowPath mundane travel from the past to the future at a rate of one second per second]],[[note]]For all you physics buffs out there, yes, this does imply that TimeTravel is unitless (or dimensionless, if you want to get really technical)[[/note]][[note]]modulo some time dilation as observed from a non–co-moving frame[[/note]] no human has ever experienced TimeTravel first hand. Indeed, we don't know if it's even possible.[[note]]Albert Einstein's mathematics show it is achievable by TimeDilation through accelerating to high speeds, but only towards the future and without a way back. We also know that gravity slows down time, meaning that if you are in space your one second per second would be negligibly faster than on earth. Astronauts on the ISS travel ten milliseconds into the future every year as the higher velocity effect outweighs the lower gravity effect.[[/note]] So debating [[OurTimeTravelIsDifferent which time travel]] [[TemporalMutability theory is right]] is much like trying to find the best flavor of Kool-Aid. Fans [[BellisariosMaxim are aware and accepting of this]], just like no one minds when OurMonstersAreDifferent, or two different series have [[FunctionalMagic different rules for magic,]] so long as the series' [[MagicAIsMagicA own internal rules are consistent.]]

* ''Fanfic/KyonBigDamnHero'' has much more TimeTravel going on than [[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya the original]] -- to the point that at any point of story there is at least one open [[StableTimeLoop loop]]. Amusingly, Kyon once [[ShoutOut quoted]] [[Series/DoctorWho the Doctor]] when trying to explain his understanding of TimeTravel.

* ''Anime/DokiDokiPrecure'''s NonSerialMovie handles this trope in what's probably the most dumbest way possible. The BigBad, frustrated at the Pretty Cures escaping their temporal prison as well as reforming one of his minions, decided to travel to the ''future'' and kill everyone there. Apparently, according to this movie, if there is no future to look forward to, the present will cease to exist (despite the fact that going to the future and changing things there affects jack squat in the present). It's telling that when the next time ''Pretty Cure'' decided to handle time travel again in ''Anime/HugttoPrettyCure'', they opted to scrap what ''[=DokiDoki=]'' established in exchange for the more manageable [[TheMultiverse Multiverse Theory]].

* In ''Fanfic/HuntersOfJustice/'' [[ComicBook/TheLegionOfSuperheroes Saturn Girl]] explains that thanks to [[CloseEnoughTimeline the Flashpoint Paradox]], the 21st century is a complete jumble of possibilities mashed together, making it next to impossible to accurately tell what's meant to happen between the 1940s and the 31st century. Legionaries are stationed all throughout the world in the past to monitor the flow of history and report back to their native time to keep accurate records. This is also [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall a subtle nod]] to the ''many'' {{Continuity Reboot}}s ''DC Comics'' has had in its long history.