Time Stands Still: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|''"Stand still, you ever moving spheres of heaven,

 

Time freezes (or seems to) for everyone and everything in the entire universe, except for the main cast of the story. The characters find themselves in an eerie, calm, silent world where the people and objects around them have become motionless statues. In some stories, this phenomenon happens by accident; in others, the heroes can stop time by using [[Magic and Powers|magic, a super power]] or [[Applied Phlebotinum]].

 

Not to be confused with the songs by [[Blind Guardian]], [[Rush]], or [[The All American Rejects]].

 

== Anime and Manga ==

 

 

 

 

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** Spells with the "Split-second" ability work a bit like this as well. Until they resolve no other spells or abilities can be put on the stack, meaning that nothing can be done until the spell's effect has already happened.

* The obscure True Brujah vampire clan from the ''[[Old World of Darkness]]'' could do this as a matter of routine.

* Inverted during the "Oceans Unmoving" arc from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]''. Rather than freezing the rest of the world in time, the characters are trapped inside Timeless Space, a world where time ''naturally'' stands still, and it takes immense effort to keep themselves from being frozen in time as well.

** Played straight during the "Holiday Wars" arc where {{spoiler|Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are revealed to have [[Super Speed]] that makes everyone else seem like they're standing still. This is how they're able to deliver millions of presents/eggs in a single night.}}

* Gained in a super-speed version by Doc in ''[[The Whiteboard]]'' at one point due to one too many Mountain Dews. We first see the world from everyone else's perspective involving multiple things (that Doc had touched) exploding and Doc suddenly being found several buildings over with multiple broken walls between his origin and destination. While he doesn't have to deal with air friction or light shifting, he does have to deal with inertia, both that of other objects and his own.

* Several characters in ''[[Homestuck]]'' have this power. Interesting enough, it IS ordinarily a [[Game Breaker]], but [[Game Breaking Bug|their game is so broken]] that it ends up being one of the only ways they can even damage their enemies, let alone defeat them.

* In ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'', Coyote has the power to freeze time in order to carry on side conversations. Also, earlier in the comic, Antimony mentioned that she would talk with the Guides for hours "while time stood still", but it's possible she was just being metaphorical.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* Sara Waite does this once in the [[Whateley Universe]], 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. Ick. At which point she's naked.

* Dan from ''[[Trinton Chronicles]]'' has this power. He also has a few [[Required Secondary Powers]] which act as a fail-safe to this ability and prevents him from creating holes or friction burns on objects and people, allows him to see as if everything was at normal pace (this could also be explained by the fact that he isn't moving faster than light), and gives him the ability to breathe even if the air seems to become slightly more like water. This time-stopping power is his most power gift but he rarely uses it, instead relying on the ability to [[Time Master|decelerate or accelerate]] people and objects in time.

* [[YouTube]] TV show [[Po Ps]] has a character with this as her superpower.

 

* [[Big Bad|Nox]] from ''[[Wakfu]]'' is a [[Sdrawkcab Name|Xelor]], a race of beings with the power to manipulate time. So far, he hasn't ''stopped'' time per se, but he has slowed it down to the point where everything appears to have stopped. Furthermore, anyone who manages to break his spell suffers from [[Rapid Aging]] and other debilitating side-effects.

* ''[[DuckTales (1987)]]'': "Time Teasers," another time-freezing comedy. The Beagle Boys get their hands on a device invented by Gyro Gearloose that lets the user stop time, and attempt to use it to rob Scrooge's money bin. However, a [[Phlebotinum Breakdown]] ends up transporting them back to the days of [[pirate]]s. Earlier in the same episode, Huey, Dewey, and Louie also use this watch to put their favorite baseball team ahead 32 to 16. They still lose.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Applied Phlebotinum]]

[[Category:Older Than Television]]

[[Category:Time Tropes]]