Top 13 One-Shot Time Loop Fanfics
Ranked by AO3 kudos. Each fic is tagged with time loop and falls in the short stories under 10,000 words range.
Love was the Law
by ruinthatboy
“This is wrong,” Jayce rasped, his voice strained with torment, so unlike the Jayce that had left mere hours ago to dance and drink and make merry and maybe even make love to the beautiful Mel Medarda. “This is too far back, I shouldn’t be here—” This Jayce was like a wild animal, bearded and shag
Do it Again
by thisgirlsays22
By the twentieth time Geralt has gone through the loop, he decides to just throw himself off the cliff’s edge after Borch. He wakes up to his twenty-first attempt. “Fuck.”
next time, next time
by aworus
Over and over again, Aizawa Shouta is woken by the same alarm, at the same time, on the same day. The roof access door alarm is triggered. It is 7:56am. It is Saturday. And over and over again, Aizawa Shouta is just barely too late to stop Midoriya Izuku from stepping off of the ledge and splatterin
If at First You Don't Succeed...
by Feneris
In which the 104th Cadet Corp finds themselves locked in a time-loop centered around the battle of Trost, Jean bemoans the fact that he's always the last one standing, and thus the one who has to clean up after everyone, superior officers wonder just what the hell Shadis is feeding the kids in basic
never a wish better than this
by shouldbeworking
“Akechi,” Ren says.“Shut up.” Akechi snaps again, as dismissively as the first time. He stands with his gun resting against his hip, pinches the bridge of his nose and shuts his eyes tight. “Shut up, I need to think.”“Akechi, have you been, uh,” Ren taps his foot nervously against the floor. Can’t b
too much history
by orphan_account
He dreams the war in every detail, in hard brittle dawns and the sound of cannons he can feel in the roots of his teeth. His men die, their blood splatter-pattern legacies on his hands and chest. What Aaron Burr learns his second time through the American Revolutionary War: he is not dreaming.
put me back in it
by Kitchenwench
When Hermione was sent back in time to a young Death Eater Severus Snape, she never expected to fall the way she did. Meanwhile, Severus never expected to find the reason he would cling to at the height of the war crash landing in the middle of his living room. ﹒⭒﹒⭒﹒⭒﹒ or, 31 days of 31 prompts tha
Backwash Immortal
by LostVacuum
Wriothesley's life is always nipped at the bud, never living past thirty. Cursed by the late Archon Egeria, Wriothesley's soul is immortal, his body is not. In order to grant Wriothesley's greatest wish to become immortal, Egeria split her heart in two, binding Wriothesley to her for the rest of ti
[PODFIC] Meridian
by 221BasketCase
Podfic: Original Summary:Octavia wakes up in a time loop, and whatever bizarre shit is going on seems to have something to do with her estranged father and his weird, red dickhead of a boyfriend.
once more to see Q
by VoldyIsMouldy
The fifth time around, Q thinks he's settled into the rhythm of things quite well. He can anticipate moves with reasonable accuracy, though of course there is some minor variance in the later years of the timeline. By the 17th time. Q can recite the interactions word for word. /OR/ Q relives the yea
There’s (Not) Always Tomorrow
by OddVoyager
A random day in 2005 refuses to end. Mikey thinks he’s going insane until he finds someone else who’s going through the same thing. Now Pete and Mikey have to work out what’s going on.
My Eyes Look But Can't Glance Away
by VintKnight
It's a sad song that cannot be rebuked by the poor man, it will be sung again and again and he knows it…
Take me
by Anonymous
A LOT OF HURT. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK! ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡ "I love you."
More One-Shot Time Loop Fics on AO3
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About Time Loop
A character repeats the same day, battle, or death over and over until they figure out how to break the cycle. Loops can be comedic, romantic — infinite chances to perfect a confession — or quietly horrifying as the repetitions grind a character down.
The loop is a pressure cooker for character study: infinite retries strip away pretense, and readers love tracking what changes and what the looper finally understands.
Common scenarios: A hero reliving the day their friend dies until they find the version where everyone lives, or two characters stuck in the same loop discovering it only on iteration forty.
About This List
This list of 13one-shot Time Loop fanfics spans 57,548 total words. Kudos range from 1 on the newest entries to 45,011 on the most established. 54% are marked complete — check the status flag before committing to a longfic. The most common rating is Teen And Up Audiences (6 of 13 fics).
Recurring tags across this list: Time Loop · Angst · Groundhog Day.
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