I found The Wheel Unbroken by TheAnimaniacDude to be pretty readable.

It's inspired by Purple Days, but Jon is the one looping, pretty much. The first jump is an older (35ish?) post-tv-series Jon looping back to about the time Jon Arryn died, but thereafter he just goes back to same time and place every time he dies.

I think what I like about it so far is that it's not a fix-it story. It's arranged as an actual continuation of the conflict that seemed resolved at the end of the tv series. It's a mix of book and tv 'verse I think, and plays on some of the theories that rose out of the contentious finale.

Spoiler

"Most notably, the three eyed raven is antagonistic, and seems likely to have stolen Bran's body and masterminded a plan to end up on the throne in the original timeline. "

Also, the story has been moving at a decent clip and the author seems willing to explore a bunch of possible routes for Jon to attempt, leaving the stations of canon well behind. It's been, well, downright unpredictable at times. This is one of the better ways to do a timeloop in my opinion, using it as way to throw characters into crazy situations you probably wouldn't want to write 100k words of, but are fun to explore for a chapter or three while maintaining an overarching conflict.

 

That sounds fun. I abandoned Purple Days a long time ago despite the fact that I love the premise. I'll give it a read this evening.

 

The Wheel Unbroken is actually really good. Wow. People feel in character. People react to Jon changing stuff. So pleasantly surprised.

 

Yes. That story was excellent, you should put it up for review.

 

I agree, The Wheel Unbroken is very good. My only complain is that for almost 50k words, it feels rather short at the moment.

 

The Mannis with a Plannis.

"An American chemist is reincarnated into the body of Stannis Baratheon, he explores the new world he finds himself in learning about the 'Higher Mysteries' that his education on earth didn't cover in order to better take advantage of his meta-knowledge and sit on the most uncomfortable chair in Westeros. Stannis SI! Reincarnation."

The chemist thing is mostly for wildfire shenanigans, and people thinking he can do magic.

Nowhere near perfect, some Gary Stu territory, but at least it's not fucking uplifting the peasants or a printing press SI deal again. The SI has interesting reputation, plans and ambitions, and feels like a mythological character of yore at this point. I disliked the multiple povs, but I found it worth reading.

 

That's not even the same fic. Did you even bother reading beyond the title itself? One is a time traveling Stannis Baratheon returned to his younger self, the other an American chemist self-inserting into Stannis Baratheon.

 

I don't have an account for that other forum, so indeed, I didn't bother reading beyond the title. Identical title and both Stannis fics made me think they were the same.

 

The Wheel Unbroken has a lot of potential. I wouldn't go so far as to call it good quite yet, though. The author has written a lot already, but as said above, it still feels really short. That's probably because of the

Spoiler

deaths/rebirths cycle. Jon never actually truly goes somewhere, because he's killed relatively quickly and wakes up in Winterfell again. I'm actually a bit concerned about having the Three-Eyed-Raven as the antagonist. He's too powerful if the author doesn't give Jon some kind of realistic ability that gives him the chance to withstand the Raven's machinations.

It feels like the story's not out of the prologue yet.

 

Yeah, I held off on putting The Wheel Unbroken up for review precisely because it doesn't feel like it's made it through the opening gambit and revealed what the bulk of the story will be yet. That said, it has potential and it's a pretty good read. I'd even be okay with Jon flailing around trying to figure out what's going on and how to advance for quite a while, as long as his attempts keep putting him in novel situations.

 

I know what you mean, it feels a bit up in the air as to the current arc with Jon pursuing his latest goal. If he succeeds, the pressure is kind of gone, if he doesn't he can't really focus on much else until he does.

I feel like the reveal of the antagonist should have waited a bit, because now it kind of demands attention before anything else. Still a solidly entertaining story though, especially the interactions with Theon and Robb.

 

The Three Eyed Raven is a bit intrusive and domineering over the plot. I love the idea of eldritch horror Bran, but I would have preferred it if he wasn't introduced until a bit later. As it currently stands, Jon is basically getting struck by lightning from a clear sky at random whenever it decides to attack.

It's not satisfying because it doesn't feel like Jon's deaths are properly earned. It reduces them to something meaningless and rote.

If he manages to kill the raven, that would be an excellent point of divergence he wouldn't want to go back behind - this would give him motivation for living again without the reset switch being an easy way out of any peril, since that's a threat which seems capable of following him. And once that's addressed, he'd be able to get involved in making progress with affecting events elsewhere.

Still, this is pretty enjoyable aside from that one complaint and the occasional misuse of capitals.

 

I have speculations about where I think this is going in the story:

Spoiler

I think Jon is going to continue getting stomped if he tries to go after the Raven directly. But I also think he's going to figure out how the Raven keeps finding him. It's probably pretty hard to hide from the Raven once he's looking, but he also doesn't seem aware of Jon's weirdness until something clues him in. If Jon can figure out how to avoid gaining the Raven's notice, that's a significant advantage that could give him time to collect whatever knowledge/skills/macguffins he needs to take the Raven out.

That's my impression anyway. Wishful thinking maybe, I think this is more interesting than the Raven being a sideshow/bump on the road to Jon Peggy-Sueing his way through canon. I don't know where it leaves the conflict for the iron throne/against the white walkers, but I'd be pretty happy if he spent a bunch of lives traveling to different places hunting down information, operating with an uncharacteristic rashness because of the impermanence of consequences, and dying in interesting ways. I guess I'm hoping the story will work with the looping mechanic, rather than against it. There are plenty of serious minded fics in the ASOIAF fandom, one just running with the bonkers potential of it's set-up would be refreshing.

 

its pretty obvious, every time he gets caught, he name drops the raven.

 

If you name a thing, you draw its attention. Why do you think so many cultures called bears stuff like "brown" instead?

 

I’m getting the impression that the Raven is more than the Three Eyed Raven.

Spoiler

There was a line when it took over Slynt where it says this has been eons in the planning.

IMO, the raven is a gestalt consciousness of every greenseer to become the Three Eyed Raven. It is, quite literally, an old god. I don’t think Jon killing it will kill it the way he thinks it will.

 

There's nothing saying that the Brynden to Bran hop was the first of its kind.

 

Chapter 7 out. Feels like some progress is being made. At nearly 50k words, it's approaching the point where a review thread might soon be appropriate. I'd definitely be giving it a 4/5. It's enjoyable, and original enough. Held back by some scatty pacing which have cut out most of the sense of accomplishment we should have seen so far (although beginning to improve in the recent chapter) and a few minor but persistent errors like dialogue tags being capitalised.

 

Been reading the wheel unbroken, to me it's more interesting than what I had assumed from the premise, although where the author goes with it remains to be seen. Hopefully the story keeps moving forward as it is now instead of being stuck in a certain place. Curious to see if defeating the Raven will be the story's end or just the end of an arc with exploration of how Jon deals with everything else knowing what happens and what he has learned in the time loops.

The story also has gotten me interested in reading Purple Days, there's a lot of discussion on that in this thread. Does anyone know if it's possible to get an epub version of it somewhere or is the only option on the spacebattles forum?

 

I've started reading Purple Days and boy are the first chapters as rough as everyone in this thread said.

Joffrey saying a line like “I’m freaking ready Hound, just get on with it!” is just atrocious and just sounds juvenile in a very un-ASOIAF way. I trust that it gets better. I might start skimming.

Also I find the use of "Arch-traitor" very annoying for some reason.