History Main / TimeStandsStill

Compare SuperReflexes and YearInsideHourOutside. Can be a result of KlatchianCoffee. Not to be confused with FrozenInTime. Also not to be confused with the ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'' episode. Sometimes may be [[ColourCodedForYourConvenience visually represented]] as a ColourCodedTimestop. Can be used to justify an extreme SpeedBlitz. Often ends with UnPaused. Many believe this is [[HowCanSantaDeliverAllThoseToys how Santa delivers his gifts]].

** During the poker game in [[Recap/InterviewWithTheVampire2022S1E1InThroesOfIncreasingWonder the first episode]], Lestat de Lioncourt stops time with his vampire skills so that he and Louis de Pointe du Lac can have a private conversation. (While Lestat does have PsychicPowers, this is not a case of PeoplePuppets because the whiskey being poured into a glass is "frozen" while the poker chips are suspended in mid-air.)
** In "[[Recap/InterviewWithTheVampire2022S1E5AVileHungerForYourHammeringHeart A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart]]", Lestat halts time at the speakeasy so that he and Louis can make a quick exit.

* In ''VisualNovel/KajiriKamuiKagura'' the antagonist Tenma Yato can use this power with his Law: Res Novae - Also Sprach Zarathustra. The Law was created from his desire “I want to enjoy this moment forever”. After activation, time, in all levels of existence, are completely frozen, even in areas where time in all its forms does not exist. Through an extension known as “Time Armor”, Yato is also capable of completely negating change, making all damage done to him effectively null unless the opponent's power outright exceeds his own. Using this power he was able to halt [[OmnicidalManiac Hajun's]] Law from being completed for over 8,000 years, which by completion would have destroyed all of existence.

* In ''Roleplay/RollToDodgeSavral,'' the Witch Louise has the ability to manipulate time and by extension freeze it. On turn 69, she uses this ability to isolate Brah from a group of dragonborn soldiers and torment her with a swarm of puking [[Franchise/{{Kirby}} Scarfy]]-like creatures. This scene even has the world turn monochrome.

* In one ''Website/TheCrewOfTheCopperColoredCupids'' short story, the Cupids stopped time within the confines of a warehouse by [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum filling it with clocks]], using the reasoning that to get a reading on time, a clock presumably worked by excising a "piece" of time from existence and analyzing it — meaning if you put enough clocks in the same place, they would remove ''all'' the time in that place.
* Sara Waite does this once in the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse,'' speeding up fast enough to save someone who is ''currently'' being shot in the head. She does have superpowers: she's actually a Great Old One. Still, her superspeed means she has no light to see with, the friction from the air molecules burns her clothes and skin off, her speed causes her to punch through several walls before she finally stops, she ends up embedded in a bank vault wall, and it takes time for her body to grow back afterward. At which point she's naked.

* One of the relaunch events in TheNewTens for ''Creator/MarvelComics'' has the narrative consistently emphasize that time cannot ever be truly stopped, [[UsefulNotes/Relativity only drastically dilated between frames of reference]]. One TimeMaster describes "pausing" as feeling like twisting a running water hose. You can slow the flow but the pressure behind it is ever-present until you don't have the strength to hold it back anymore.

** In the fifth episode, Lestat halts time at the speakeasy so that he and Louis can make a quick exit.

* Exists as a sub-genre of pornographic literature, generally with no attention whatsoever paid to how the mechanics would work out what with friction, immobile body parts and organs, and other things that would make such an act impossible.

* The heat death of the Universe is often described that way, as there would be no events that could be used to determine the flowing of time.

** During the poker game in the first episode, Lestat de Lioncourt stops time with his vampire skills so that he and Louis de Pointe du Lac can have a private conversation. (While Lestat does have PsychicPowers, this is not a case of PeoplePuppets because the whiskey being poured into a glass is "frozen" while the poker chips are suspended in mid-air.)

** ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' introduces Hit, a [[ProfessionalKiller professional hitman]] who possesses the ability to [[spoiler: freeze time for one-tenth (and later one-half) of a second]], making him look so fast that even Goku and Vegeta (who have become {{Physical God}}s) can't keep up with him.

** The Asgard use a time-dilation field as a trap for the Replicators, drawing them all to one planet with the intention of freezing time there until they can find a more permanent solution. Unfortunately, in the time before the device activates, the Reps are able to reverse its operation, speeding up time massively inside the field and giving them subjective centuries to [[NiceJobBreakingItHero evolve the Humanform design and convert the entire mass of the planet to replicator blocks]]. At this point, Thor calls in SG-1 to help fix the problem, Carter resets the device to work properly and reactivates it, and the episode ends with a frozen tableau of replicators inches from the device controls, which they wouldn't reach until a season later.

* In ''FanFic/{{Fractured}}'', a ''Franchise/MassEffect''[=/=]''Franchise/StarWars''[[spoiler:[=/=]''[=Borderlands=]'']] [[MassiveMultiplayerCrossover crossover]] a medical capsule slows time drastically for the patient inside (who as [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe Half the Woman She Used to Be]] would die very quickly otherwise).

* In ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'', the party finds themselves in a ''world'' frozen in time. One of the mildest effects of that is you being able to walk on top of the GiantWallOfWateryDoom like it's any other solid surface.

* Being based on ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'' eventually gave you access to the Time Stop spell, as well as traps that had a lesser version of the effect. This allowed mages to cast multiple damage spells set to go off the moment the effect ended, and was extremely potent. However, the BonusBoss and the FinalBoss of the expansion were both immune to the effect, so casting it trapped a squishy mage all alone with a PhysicalGod, who was free to butcher your comrades while they were frozen. Also, the [[CastingAShadow Shadowdancer's]] special ability Shadowstep is a less powerful version of this.

* The BonusBoss in ''VideoGame/BloodstainedRitualOfTheNight'' has this ability. You can also poach it off him as a Shard by defeating him. Like [[{{Franchise/Castlevania}} its spiritual predecessors]], ''Bloodstained'' plays the ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' angle even further by adding a very distinct sound effect that sounds extremely similar to The World's "dubstep fart", complete with a slowing ticking sound.

** In [[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI the original game]], Stop is one of the seven spells. Very useful in most cases, where any enemy hit by this spell is frozen for a few seconds, allowing you to score some free hits. Once the spell effect ends, every hit lands at the same time. Almost every boss is immune, but it's quite effective against {{Mooks}}, and downright vital if you're going to take on the Clock Tower Phantom, a BonusBoss that gives you the spell's final upgrade.

* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'':

** In the [[spoiler: Season 4 finale, Gwen and Ianto are saved from a Dalek invading the Torchwood Hub by a "time lock", freezing everything outside the door]]. There's also a moment in the second episode of Season 1 when the Doctor appears to slow down time to solve a pendulum-of-death puzzle. However, this is probably a Flash-type scenario where he's actually speeding up his mental perceptions so that time seems to slow around him.
** The Doctor and Romana wound up in one, called a Chronic Hysteresis, in Meglos.
** Several planets have been placed into time loops by the Time Lords, including the War Lords' planet at the climax of The War Games, the Vardan homeworld in The Invasion of Time and Planet 5 in the Image of the Fendahl
** The Third Doctor put the Axos in a time loop in The Claws of Axos
** And then there's the Key to Time, which briefly stopped time for the ''entire rest of the universe''.
** Something similar to the Sarah-Jane example happens in the DW 2011 finale, only it happens to all of history instead of just a few people. The result: Holy Roman Emperor Winston Churchill, pterodactyls in public parks, and cars being carried across London by hot-air balloon. People are still aware and moving, but all the clocks have stopped and the date is always the same. Only a few people notice anything wrong with this.
** In "The Day of the Doctor", the part where the Two Doctors and his other regeneration go into the "Time Lord Art" probably counts. And, after a little thought, the "Time Lord Art" itself as well.
** The Master's invention TOMTIT in "The Time Monster," makes time stand still in an area around the apparatus.
** Happens again at the start of "Twice Upon a Time".
* ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'' - When the Doctor crashes Sarah-Jane's wedding, the Trickster yanks the church out of time and splits up the main cast by trapping them in two separate seconds.

* In the later seasons of ''Series/{{The Flash|2014}}'', Barry's SuperSpeed gets so fast he's able to do this from his perspective, which is eventually dubbed "Flashtime". Even bullets barely creep along when he's in this mode. In one episode, he even somehow manages to pull another character into the same frame of reference, having a conversation with her, while barely a second passes for everyone else. A few episode later, almost the entirety of the episode takes place over a millisecond, while lasting hours for Barry, Jesse, and Jay, as they're trying to [[spoiler:save the city from a nuclear bomb that has already detonated]]. There was also the Turtle in Season 2, who made it ''seem'' as if this trope was in effect. In fact, he was simply draining the kinetic energy of everything around him.

* In ''Series/{{Lucifer|2016}}'', this is the angel Amenadiel's power. Typically, an indicator that Amenadiel has appeared is everything slowing down to a crawl for everyone but Lucifer. One episode involves Lucifer deliberately summoning his brother in order to make use of his ability as part of his plan to punish a killer ([[spoiler:catching a bullet in mid-air and then seemingly teleporting several yards away]]).

** "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1963S1E16ControlledExperiment Controlled Experiment]]." Two comical Martians use a "Temporal Condenser" that can pause, rewind, and fast forward time to study the human "custom" of murder.
** "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1963S2E16ThePremonition The Premonition]]." After they simultaneously crash in a jet and a car, a test pilot and his wife find themselves out of sync with time, with everything outside of their vehicles immovably stuck. At first, time seems to be frozen, but it's actually moving imperceptibly slowly because the characters are JustOneSecondOutOfSync with the timestream.
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' had an episode with a performance enhancer that gave the user SuperSpeed. The guy uses it so much that he goes into this trope.

* In ''Series/RedDwarf'', the episode "Pete", the main characters obtain a device that can store and manipulate time. Besides freezing time for everyone else, it can also rewind time (so no one else will know they have it), change people's age, change people's ''clothes'' (so they dress in 60's style instead), and un-evolve living things. The target of the last one is a small bird. Now think about what you learned from Hollywood science...

** In "Run", Clark sees time frozen as he runs to save his dad from a runaway truck, but is shocked to see Bart Allen, "the Flash", still [[MoveInTheFrozenTime moving just as fast as him]].
** "Jinx" has one of the lengthiest displays of frozen time when Clark goes into Super Speed ''a moment before being tackled'' in a championship football game, runs into a nearby building, easily defeats a (frozen) villain, and runs back to take the tackle without anybody noticing he moved.

** In "The Quest", the protagonists must navigate a maze that will dilate time for anyone who strays off the path, thus effectively trapping them. Thus time stood still for all the people stuck in the field, but the protagonists could still (very cautiously) navigate the maze unimpeded, just by throwing sand around and avoiding where it stopped in midair.
** SG-1 also had the Asgard use a time-dilation field as a trap for the Replicators, drawing them all to one planet with the intention of freezing time there until they could find a more permanent solution. Unfortunately in the time before the device activated the Reps were able to reverse it's operation, speeding up time massively inside the field and giving them subjective centuries to [[NiceJobBreakingItHero evolve the Humanform design and convert the entire mass of the planet to replicator blocks]]. At this point Thor called in SG-1 to help fix the problem, Carter reset the device to work properly and reactivated it and the episode ended with a frozen tableau of replicators inches from the device controls, which they wouldn't reach until a season later.
** The technology mentioned above returns in the GrandFinale: the ''Odyssey'' is seconds from destruction and Carter needs more time to find a solution, but they were just given the specs for ''all'' Asgard technology, [[ChekhovsBoomerang including the Time Dilation device]]. As a result, the seconds to destruction become ''decades'', with the incoming energy beam slowly creeping toward them as Carter tries to find a way to stop it.
** There was also the early episode "A Matter of Time", wherein an SG team had been sent to a planet that was close to a newly formed black hole; they tried to gate back home, but by then the time dilation effects were too strong, and the gate deactivated at Earth's end...the other end would be open until the end of time. The SGC blew the connection to keep the Earth from being pulled through the gate into the black hole. The time dilation also caused everyone in the mountain to be several weeks behind everyone else once the crisis was over.
--->'''Hammond:''' By my reckoning, I was gone 20 minutes.
--->'''Carter:''' Well, sir, accounting for time spent coming and going, I would guess that time within the SGC facility has slowed to an average of about 600 percent below normal. When you ordered Colonel O'Neill to wait 5 minutes, you were really telling him to wait 6 hours, maybe more.
--->'''Hammond:''' Captain, relativity gives me a headache!

** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': "Wink of an Eye" features aliens who move so fast that they're invisible to the naked eye and everyone else appears frozen to them. (Interestingly enough, so long as none of the aliens or the people they abducted into their 'timeframe' by means of a drug are actually around to watch, both they and the crew seem to [[MeanwhileInTheFuture function in parallel and on the same timescale]] just fine. This point is never addressed.)
*** Kirk receives the drug when it's slipped into his coffee, inadvertently making it look like a KlatchianCoffee effect.
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': Like it's predecessor, this trope comes into play.
*** In "Timescape", several crew members return to the Enterprise to find it and a Romulan warbird frozen in time. It's actually very slowly progressing, but this is only noticed by an android while looking at an explosion that would destroy the ship in seconds.
*** In "Journey's End", [[spoiler: Wesley]] briefly freezes time just as a fight breaks out between human colonists, Starfleet and the Cardassians. This is meant to prove that he has truly [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascended to a higher plane of existence]].
** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': "Blink of an Eye" (Unrelated to the above "Wink of an Eye", mostly) features a planet where time passes very quickly. They eventually send a pair of astronauts up to Voyager, who spend several minutes walking among the seemingly frozen crew until they begin to synchronize with Voyager's time-rate (the transition is fatal for one of them).
*** To be specfic, to the people on the planet, Voyager had been in the same part of the sky for millennia, becoming part of their religions, fairy tales, and pop culture in general. For Voyager, only a few days passed.
* ''{{Series/Supernatural}}''. Fate is shown to have this power, and uses it to set up [[RubeGoldbergHatesYourGuts elaborate accidents]] to kill people.

* ''Series/TheWildWildWest'' episode "The Night of the Burning Diamond". A criminal scientist develops a formula (based on diamond dust) which gives anyone who drinks it SuperSpeed so fast that it appears to them that the rest of the world is standing still.

* ''VideoGame/Disgaea5'': Killia's initial [[LimitBreak Overload Skill]], ''Alma Ice Sculpture'', allowed him to freeze time around a target. However, due to how much energy it consumed, it is noted as being AwesomeButImpractical for combat. Before the events of the game, [[BigBad Void Dark]] stole it using his Overload Skill, [[PowerParasite Brigante Eclipse]] alongside several other Overload skills throughout the story [[spoiler: in order to revive his older sister, Liezerota, whom he accidentally killed when she took a hit intended to finish off Killia.]] When the party does face Void Dark near the end of the game, he cycles through all the Overloads he stole throughout the story; when Alma Ice Sculpture is active, anyone he strikes will be unable to take their next action.

* ''LightNovel/FateApocrypha'': This is one of the effects of Achilles' Duel Field, which allows himself and another opponent to [[LetsFightLikeGentlemen have a completely fair one-on-one fight]]. To prevent outside interference from disrupting the duel, time freezes for everyone except the combatants within the Duel Field, only resuming when a victor is declared.

* Yuki Nagato, the SufficientlyAdvancedAlien / ArtificialHuman from the ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'' franchise, is also capable of freezing time. And if she wishes so she can hold time and everything within a defined place in the space-time continuum, yet the time not in this area is still flowing (as she did in Season 2, Episode 1, "Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody" or in the same-titled Light Novel Chapter in book 3).
* In ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'', Gasper Vladi's Sacred Gear, Forbidden Balor View, can temporarily freeze everything.

* In ''LightNovel/{{Overlord}}'', Ainz has the power of time-stop, demonstrated when he freezes time in his duel with Gazef immediately as the fight began, and ends the battle when he casts instant-death on Gazef, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin killing him instantly]].

* ''LightNovel/ShakuganNoShana'''s PhantomZone (fuzetsu) freezes everything in place (except non-{{muggles}}) and turns everything gray. [[AllThereInTheManual Time doesn't ''really'' stop]], and events proceed normally ''outside'' the barrier, but it certainly makes a good imitation.

* ''LightNovel/ThatTimeIGotReincarnatedAsASlime'':
** True Dragon [[AnIcePerson Velzard]] has the Ultimate Skill [Patience King Gabriel], which weaponizes the concept of "deceleration/slowing down". The "Suspended World" allows her to stop time on a planetary scale ''at least'' for several minutes at a time.
** Velzard's "partner" and True Demon Lord [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils Guy Crimson]] also possesses the ability to stop time, presumably thanks to his own Ultimate Skill [Prideful King Lucifer], which gives him [[spoiler:[[PowerCopying the ability to copy other Skills, even Ultimates]]]].
** [[spoiler:[[FutureBadass Chloe Aubert]]]] possesses this power via the Ultimate Skill [Space-Time King Yog Sothoth]. [[spoiler:When she and Guy have a "mock" battle with each other after she unlocks this power properly from merging with her SuperpoweredEvilSide Chronoa, both of them using their time-stopping abilities at once makes the battle to the onlookers (True Demon Lords Rimuru, Luminous, and Leon) look like rapid flashes of movement from their swords none of them can properly perceive, despite the fact all of them have SuperReflexes and SuperSenses to the point they can perceive ''light-speed'' movement. However, due to Chloe's inexperience with the Ultimate Skill at first, a latter fight has her use her time-stopping power for too long in a single duration and [[HeroicRROD forcibly returning to her child form from the strain]].]]

* Tomoyo Kanzaki of ''LightNovel/WhenSupernaturalBattlesBecameCommonplace'' has a power that lets her do just that.

* In ''Webcomic/BlurTheLines'', Rick accidentally stops time while imitating Hiro from ''Heroes'' and uses the opportunity to get... intimate with a friend of his. [[http://www.blur-the-lines.com/?p=62]]

* ''Film/{{Clockstoppers}}'' (2002) has a wristwatch which can move the wearer into "hypertime," where time seems to stand still. (It doesn't though. It just moves ''really'' slowly). For some reason, this doesn't seem to affect whatever moving vehicles they occupy. It gets weirder. Towards the end, [[spoiler:the entire villain base enters hypertime (the villains also have hypertime). Cue the protagonist then pulling out the watch, and being warned that doubled-up hypertime is ultra-dangerous/deadly. He still uses the watch, and becomes some sort of ethereal energy being temporarily. Weirdly enough, time doesn't appear to have stopped when he's in double hypertime, but being ethereal negated the need for Time Stands Still]].
* ''Film/{{Constantine}}'': Time freezes when [[spoiler:Lucifer comes to Earth to collect]] Constantine. He's able to allow time to flow normally for objects or spaces around him, first having a leisurely conversation with Constantine, then shattering glass in a very cool BulletTime effect, then snatching away [[spoiler:Angela from Gabriel]] just as he allows time to continue, causing them to "miss" with the spear.

* ''Film/InspectorGadget2'', Dr. Claw's evil plan is to freeze time so that he can rob the Federal Reserve in Riverton.

* In the ''Series/{{UFO}}'' episode "Timelash", the main character finds everything stilled in the base, but can pick up any item that ''wasn't moving when time stopped''.

* In ''Manga/Cyborg009'', Joe Shimamura/009 accessed his SuperSpeed ability by pushing his tongue down on one of his molars. In one episode, he temporarily lost the ability to switch it off, so he had to stop the MonsterOfTheWeek without being able to interact with it. 009's accelerator got stuck in a far higher speed than he had ever reached before (or since), causing him to initially think time has actually stopped. There was no monster in that episode, but he did save a bunch of people from an explosion that had begun just as his accelerator got stuck. The trick was that he couldn't simply carry them to safety, because if he touched anything while super-accelerated, the friction he generated would have caused it to catch fire. And as he couldn't turn it off and continued stuck in that sort-of loophole, his HeroicBSOD continued escalating and 009 almost went ''insane'', until the effect wore off by itself.

** ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'': [[ComicBook/{{Quicksilver}} Peter Maximoff]] uses the super speed version in the film's SignatureScene to mess with some Pentagon guards, and to redirect the bullets they had just fired. A similar scene happens in ''Film/XMenApocalypse'', where he arrives at the X-Mansion shortly ''after'' an explosion begins yet pulls everyone out [[spoiler:except Havok, who had already been caught in the explosion]] in a few nanoseconds.

** [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders DIO's Stand, The World]], can do this. An interesting example, in that this is played up as every bit as devastating a power as it seems (especially since, unlike many of the other examples, DIO is perfectly capable of damaging objects and people in the time-frozen world). Most of the cast, good ''and'' bad, is [[TheDreaded terrified of him]]. Only Jotaro comes out of the fight with him still able to stand on his own, and that's only because [[spoiler:his own Stand, Star Platinum, has the exact same power]]. And the only reason the heroes ''survived'' at all, as Joseph realized, is because DIO hasn't yet properly synchronized with The World to be able to keep time continuously stopped (he can only keep time stopped for a few seconds from his perspective before he has to let it flow again for a while; only through continuous usage of his Stand and [[spoiler:furthering his assimilation with Jonathan Joestar's body]] can he increase the length of his time-stops). [[spoiler:By the time he drains Joseph's blood to complete his assimilation of Jonathan's body, The World is able to rapidly improve its duration ''with each successive use'', to the point it's clear that if he hadn't been killed by the end, DIO would have been able to make good on his earlier boast that eventually he would be able to stop time for as long as he wants.]]
--->'''''ZA WARUDO! Toki yo tomare!''' (THE WORLD! Time, stop!)''
** [[spoiler:Then Jotaro gains the ability as well, though not as long as DIO because he lacks a vampire's stamina and HealingFactor to handle the strain. Activating it while trapped by DIO's The World lets him move freely during the time stop. However, DIO doesn't figure out how to do this before nearly being killed by Jotaro. During ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable Diamond is Unbreakable]]'', the amount of time Jotaro's body can handle being in stopped time has decreased from the 5 seconds it was at the end of Part 3 to just 1-2 seconds due to lack of practice, but it's still powerful enough to make Jotaro TheDreaded. By the time of Stone Ocean, Jotaro had completely mastered time stop, being able to push every time stop to his maximum limit of 5 seconds. However, the strain the ability puts on his heart has caused his stand's durability ranking to drastically decrease from an A all the way down to an E, meaning it's now significantly more fragile than even your average joe.]]