#Infinite Flow

[miyamiwu]

Essential Elements of an Unlimited/Infinite Flow Story

As someone attempting to write my own Unli Flow, I thought I’d take note of the different elements so I can have a guide I can always refer back to.

I’ve explained what Unli Flow means many times before, but in case you missed it: Unlimited/Infinite Flow is a genre in Chinese web novels that feature characters entering multiple “instances” where they have to complete a challenge and/or solve a mystery. Failure in doing so would lead to consequences, most often death.

There’s also this definition by AshuraYami from the NovelUpdates Forum:

Unlimited Flow/Infinite Flow is a genre originating from the CN novel Terror Infinity. The genre mainly revolves on world hopping involving fictional works (anime, comics, movies, games and novels) and/or original worlds created by the author. Infinite Flow, as it’s ‘infinite’ namesake suggests, can accommodate all other genres, be it fantasy, sci-fi, horror, romance, etc. Representative works are Terror Infinity (origin of genre), Reincarnation Paradise (most chapters and word count), The Ultimate Evolution (promoter of data flow, an infinite flow derivative that is more game-like litRPG) and Thriller Paradise (most famous horror infinite flow).

With the definition out of the way, let’s goooo

[This post will also serve as a rec list of sorts, since I’ll be giving examples of each element from different danmei novels.]

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1. The Authority

The entity/system in charge of the Unlimited Flow system as a whole. Most stories just chalk it up to the Unli Flow being some kind of otherworldly being/extremely advanced AI that just likes to mess with people.

Examples of The Authority

(based on what I remember, at least… Also, beware of spoilers)

The Earth is Online: The Universe

Mist: I forgot what it’s called, but that high tech system in charge of all the Time Traveling stuff...

High Energy QR Code: That black and white cube thing

Surprise! The Supposed Talent Show was Actually—?!: … The TV station...

From left to right: Tang Mo from The Earth is Online and Wu Jin and Wei Shi from Surprise! The Supposed Talent Show was Actually—?!

[Spoilers End]

From having read numerous Unli Flow stories, I conclude that crucial to a great, not just good, Unli Flow story is a well-defined Authority. The explanation behind the Authority’s existence and motives is the foundation to the entire story.

You can have a very fancy building (cool instances, well-developed characters, an exciting enemies to lovers couple, etc.), but if the foundation is flimsy, the building’s value would plummet in your eyes. You can still appreciate the building, of course, but you will never be content with it.

Examples of some novels that are good in almost everything else except The Authority (in my opinion): [spoilery]

Supernatural Movie Actor App: It was too profound with not enough groundwork laid for it, resulting in The Authority feeling detached from the main story.

I Upended Yet Another Campus Urban Legend: The Authority was not exactly bad; it was just inadequate. The justification of the Unli Flow existing became unconvincing because of this.

Escape the Infinite Chamber: THE AUTHORITY IS SO FUCKING RIDICULOUS THAT IT’S ABYSMAL. And the entire thing was explained in just one scene and from one extra??? SO MUCH PAIN AND SUFFERING AND THAT’S THE ONLY EXPLANATION WE GET??? HORRENDOUS!

[Spoilers End]

From left to right: Book covers of I Upended Yet Another Campus Urban Legend and Supernatural Movie Actor App

2. Instances

Also known as “copy.” The other world/dimension where players have to face the different challenges.

The Authority may be the foundation, but the Instances are the defining aspect of the Unlimited Flow.

A lot of novels, however, are quite perfunctory when it comes to instances, just using it to further the main couple or as a mere stepping stone to the overarching plot. Or, if they’re not being perfunctory, then the Instances are just plain boring.

The first instance, especially, tend to be the most boring. Authors often use this to dump all the information about how their unli flow works. This usually gets better by the time the 2nd or 3rd instance comes around....

Upon successful completion of an Instance, players will then be rewarded with either points, special abilities, magic items, etc.

Examples of novels with GREAT instances (based on logic, thrill, horror, etc. Again, all in my own opinion):

I Became a God in a Horror Game: The horror is present all throughout. I can still remember the fear I felt while reading about the statues in the first Instance. Each instance/arc also emotionally impacts you, an effect that most Unli Flow writers don’t really aim for or just generally tend to fail at. (This is also my favorite unli flow novel at the moment~)

The Earth is Online: (same author as Fourth Perspective, which I’ve posted a lot about before) What I love about Mo Chen Huan, the author, is how they write intelligent MC’s but without making them seem too OP. And this is because she actually shows us the MC’s thought process, inviting us to think along with them and figure out how to solve the challenge, and not just make her characters say “aha!” This is what makes the Instances in TEIO great and memorable.

High Energy QR Code: The story could make use of more showing than telling, but I actually love the Instances in this novel. You know how good stories are often described as a well-made tapestry in that every little thread contributes to the big beautiful picture? That’s how each Instance reads in this novel. (Absolutely love the Instance about the town where everybody lies.)

Fu Wendou, the male lead of The Earth is Online

3. NPCs

A gaming term which stands for “Non-Player Character.” Refers to characters who live within Instances and act in such ways that further the plot or challenge presented by the Instance. They may go against players or assist them. May or may not have a will of their own.

Examples of NPCs:

Xu Beijin, the protagonist of Being an Extra Actor in an Escape Game

Lu Chu, the protagonist of Insider.

The iconic Mosaic from The Earth is Online

The male leads from Escape the Infinite Chamber, I Became a God in a Horror Game, Killing God with Junk Cards, etc. (Most danmei ML are special!NPCs 😩)

From left to right: Book covers of Being an Extra Actor in an Escape Game and Killing God with Junk Cards

4. Player Hall

A space outside of instances where different players can gather and exchange information. Most of the time, this is in a space still separate from the real world. Players are often prohibited from using their powers in this space.

In some novels, Players have no choice but to live here, completely cutting them off from the real world. In this case, accommodation quality will depend on the Player’s level or points.

5. Personal System

The Personal System issues challenges to the player and keeps track of their current attributes, physical and mental states, etc.. It also calculates rewards and punishments for the player. First and foremost in service to The Authority. (If they aren’t, then they’re most likely the Love Interest in disguise. If not, the Player had somehow swayed it to their side).

6. System Store

The points earned from the different Instances serve as the Players’ currency, and they can use it to buy things from the System Store. The Store may sell weapons, medicine, magical items, or even special abilities. Basically, any item that can help the Player during Instances. Of course, it may also sell non-magical items, like food and everyday items, at a much lower price than special items.

7. Player’s Goal/Wish

In some novels, the Goal is simply to clear all the Instances and leave the Unli Flow for good. But in others, the Unli Flow allows Players to exchange their points for a Wish. The more difficult the Wish, the more points are needed, and the more Instances are needed to be cleared.

Examples of a Goal/Wish:

Supernatural Movie Actor App: Xie Chi wants to give his second personality a body of his own.

I Became a God in a Horror Game: If I’m remembering it correctly… Bai Liu just wants to have lots of money.

I Upended Yet Another Campus Urban Legend: Lin Yi wants to learn the truth about his parents.

Thriller Tour Group: Wei Xun wants to find the truth about his family’s disappearance… and his Wish is to uhh… feel pain?

After the Little Crybaby Enters the Nightmare Cycle: Chi Nan’s Wish is to regain his vision, stop crying and get his memories back.

Death Spiral: To uhh… figure out what the voice in the Elevator is trying to tell them? To regain their memories? [The actual Wish is a big spoiler, so I won’t mention it here.]

From left to right: Book covers of After the Little Crybaby Enters the Nightmare Cycle, Thriller Tour Group, and Death Spiral

Aaaand there you have it! I was hoping to list 10 elements, but I can only think up to 7 😔

Although I said this post is a rec list of sorts, the quality of the novels I mentioned actually varies. I’m just listing whatever novel would be good as an example (and also what I can remember and have more or less completed, since many of the Unli Flow novels I’m reading are currently on-hold).

[infinizero]

Horror Instance Amity Park

As a fan of some infinite flow horror bl novels and having recently realized the dp fandom, I had the sudden epiphany that a very liminal/dead Amity Park + full Eldritch ghost Danny Sam and Tuck would be a good horror instance

As an explanation: infinite flow horror is basically a "game" of sorts where participants are dropped into horror worlds wherein they must fulfill an objective. That objective is usually survive or find out the mystery behind this world etc

Drop in the giw and Fenton parents that went mad after their son was "killed" by a ghost?

--

The glowing neon green goo should be a comical sight, yet seeing it ooze out of a living teenager's chest as they are strapped down and cut open made it feel more grotesque than the usual crimson blood.

And the teenager who just a few hours ago was bounding about showing them around had eyes that glowed the same green, staring straight at them.

The participants are substitute school teachers after the previous teachers all mysteriously disappeared. Their objective was to find out the sequence of incidents that led the town to become like this.

Someone breaks off from the group to the side and starts dry heaving, having not eaten since the start of this world due to fear of the glowing green food and how it sometimes comes back to life.

The students were all strange, sometimes showing them all inhuman features or abilities. Naturally, they assume these students will slowly kill them off if they don't solve everything soon.

They all tread warily around the students, especially avoiding whoever this Phantom they speak of is assuming him to be the boss of this instance. This all comes to a head when the giw managed to prove a student is ecto contaminated and drags them away to be cut open for examination

Which in turn leads to the scene before them.

They all follow the clues back to the Fenton house, during this time both the giw and Fenton parents start going crazy and dragging anyone who even slightly rings on the ecto radar back to be cut open

Meanwhile Phantom continuously sneaks in and rescues the captives, sometimes too late but most of the time in time. They try working with him but their goals just don't align. At most the dudes a good info source or someone they can trust not to kill them, a support NPC if anything

At this point a few of the participants have also been cut open

Eventually they clear the instance and just never look back. But the thoughts linger

Cuz. In this one, humans had been the villains. The humans had been the ones who were killing everyone and not the ghosts like usual.

Edit: adding

Compared to the inhuman students who could run faster than anyone else, the ghosts who could control plants and technology as well as the monster made of ice and starlight, somehow it is the malice and madness in ordinary human hearts that is the most terrifying

[myreputatioooon]

so it turns out the webnovels I'm reading belong to a genre that might just be my new favorite genre

[bumblebeeappletree]

In Los Angeles, Dulé Hill meets deaf dancer Shaheem Sanchez. As a dancer himself, Dulé never considered it would be possible for someone to move to a beat they could not hear, but Shaheem is showing the world that the “deaf can dance.” Shaheem is a self-taught dancer who went deaf at the age of four. He always loved to dance, and his inability to hear music was not enough to stop him. Shaheem physically connects to songs by placing his hands on a speaker and memorizing the beats. He even choreographs by studying the music’s lyrics.

Shaheem is on a mission to ensure that deaf people aren’t limited by their disability. By combining dance with American Sign Language (ASL), he entices hearing people to learn how to communicate with the deaf community. He also teaches deaf people how to dance, allowing them to express themselves through movement.

Shaheem is also a member of the dance company Infinite Flow, which celebrates dancers with disabilities and empowers children to take part in creating a more inclusive world. Dulé discovers a renewed faith in art’s capacity to reshape lives and create space for everyone in society.

The Express Way with Dulé Hill

Multi-talented actor and performer Dulé Hill (“The Wonder Years,” “The West Wing”) and director Danny Lee (“Who Is Stan Smith?”) take audiences on an emotional and celebratory road trip across the nation to explore the transformative power of the arts. Along his journey, Hill travels to California, the Appalachian region, Texas and Chicago to connect with local visionaries, activists, changemakers and pioneers who are using their artistic passions to foster connection, deepen empathy, and create meaningful change within their communities.

[lizhly-writes]

reading a cnovel and i'm tearing up. the mc is not dumb, but if given an RPG's list of possible actions, she'll always pick the option that guarantees she screws people over.

i mean, it made sense. this is an infinite flow novel, and certain types of protagonists can get out of these scenarios by being suitably audacious. which she very much is. she's quick-thinking and good at improvising ways out of certain death, but, see, it's not just about escaping death, she also grabs the highest advantage/revenge available to her at the time with like, zero regard for the consequences, even if it's completely unnecessary.

like some of it is arguable. some it is "well of course this is how i get out of this" but some it is just. petty?

at one point, she made a deal with a ghost, who used its heart for collateral. when the deal was fulfilled, did she give the heart back? no!! of course not!!! in fact, when making the deal, she notes that she has no intention of giving the heart back, and ends up trading it away to somebody else. hey, did you think about what would happen if you ran into that ghost again...?

in another scenario, there is a ghost courier who is kind of rude to her, but he's not doing the ghost thing of threatening her and the deliveries go through fine. but again, he's rude, sooo she reports him and gets him in trouble. turns out he was actually a pretty powerful bigshot who got demoted, and now super wants to kill her.

i'm not complaining about this, it's really funny to me, but i'm just like. you did not have to do that. you absolutely did not have to do that. you're doing this on purpose. you have wracked up a list of five powerful enemies doing this and the way this novel is going, this list is only going to grow.

you have one guy you fucked over at first out of self-defense but you definitely could have tried building a working relationship with. you arguably are trying to build a proper working relationship with him. but your attempts are mostly just fucking him over repeatedly and now you're wondering why he wants to kill you.

are you stupid? are you dumb? why are you so good at making enemies? no matter how much you claim you're trying to be friendly you have to be doing this on purpose, right?

[arktaisch]

I think I'm enjoying these infinite flow novels so much for many of the same reasons I love Doctor Who: you have a cool core cast of characters who run around in adventures in completely different settings (and genres) and there's a sense that you can throw your crew into anything you want, however crazy. You can have a lot more variation in tone/rules/whatever because the local reality is limited in scope to the current adventure and you can change everything for the next one.

The recurring characters gain experience and a bit of genre savvy, while the "local" characters for each adventure are more naive and play it straight (Doctor Who doesn't call them NPCs like infinite flow novels tend to do, but that's basically what they are). We get to meet new characters and new stories as we go along, and a lot of the fun comes from main characters interacting with the transient ones.

You can spend some time getting to know the local characters, then kill them off horribly, have them suffer terrible irreversible tragedies, etc. etc., while the core characters mostly have plot armor (though not completely), so you kinda have your cake and eat it too. Each instance/adventure can have its own little mysteries and soap opera plots for the main characters to discover, all while the recurring characters can have also relationships with other "adventurer" types, whether as allies, enemies, or whatever. So you can have long arcs that span a bunch of individual instances as well as the local arcs.

I also like how the infinite flow novels are willing to take their time and spend many chapters on a single adventure. The pacing feels more like classic Doctor Who rather than the 1-2 episode modern style.

Anyway, for a long time I had never found another show that quite scratched the same itch as Doctor Who did for me, but now there's something close (though not so long-running, obviously, and I haven't come across a character I like as much as the Doctor, yet).

[britishraptor]

Ms. Lucky, what's an Infinite Flow?

Hi TJ, Infinite Flow is a genre/trope predominately found in chinese novels, where a character or characters are forced into survival or puzzles games in a seperate reality. They are often horror, and it usually features a character plucked from reality (or dying) and some extra-dimensional system forcing them through self-contained worlds with some sort of challenge and objective. The key is that, after completing the world, they are (sometimes with breaks in between) continued to be forced into yet another world (hence the term ‘infinite’ or ‘unlimited’ flow):

The trope is similar to Quick Transmigration, though the standard premise in that area is more role-playing. Quick transmigration novels (especially in the BL area) are actually pretty popular on tumblr! The fandoms are pretty intense. Infinite flow…not so much. Mainly just me, haha.

Infinite flow can range from more mystery and puzzle based, to grimdark edginess. Generally speaking, even the most lighthearted novels touch upon supernatural horror, so it’s considered a ‘horror’ genre, and the final objective is always to survive.

[dearloonies]

What exactly was I expecting when I was googling fanfics for a novel that's barely even acknowledged

[monthlymanga]

Honestly, one webnovel I think that would do great as a manhua is Card Room

Like, the writing style is very action & dialogue based and I can see it being made really well. Ofc the readers will have to realize they're having "tacit understanding" on their own tho 😭

And on a more personal note, have you seen how they describe Shao Qingge at every given chance? That man needs to be in a manhua, I need him in a manhua.

[treygreen]

[miyamiwu]

I’m loving this novel because it’s still not clear who the male lead is. Usually in danmei, the ML is established right away. But in This Player Must be Using Plug-ins! (alt. title: This Character is Suspected of Cheating!), there are multiple men who can possibly be the ML.

I’m gonna have to double check later if this is actually a harem—which is unlikely since I don’t bookmark harem. But even if it were, I don’t think I'll mind coz their relationship with He Yu, the main character, have been built up so naturally.

Anyways, the ML candidates so far:

Wanrenzhan (a title, not actually his name. Literally means Ten Thousand Kills) - first one that MC met. He's been subjected to many of He Yu's schemes that for the entire second arc he keeps yapping about how he'll definitely exact his revenge on him one day. I thought he was just gonna be that stupid, annoying cannon fodder who exists simply for the MC to face-slap, but surprise, surprise, he’s the first among the candidates to have his romantic awakening haha

Zhen Xing - second one who met MC. The most powerful and popular player in this competition. He Yu once stole his equipment while riding on a giant monster fish, and this impressed Zhen Xing so much that he's been bugging him for a fight so he can compare their skills. Possible ML candidate because this is an unlimited flow, and in such genre, the ML is usually the most impressive one. And among the candidates, it was through his POV that He Yu was first described to be both fragile and beautiful. Also rushed to save He Yu and catch him as he fell. Typical ML saving the MC behavior

Eugene - the cyborg guy. Was also impressed by MC during their first meeting (He Yu had driven the giant monster fish to the island then made a dramatic and graceful landing, which was in stark contrast to Eugene’s haggard state). Second in strength to Zhen Xing, and like Zhen Xing, he joined the Dawn Training School copy just to meet He Yu again. Generally friendly towards He Yu, but in the beginning he didn’t care if Wanrenzhan managed to kill him. Now, however, he and Zhen Xing are like He Yu’s most loyal followers.

Ling Buchen - Hasn't met He Yu yet, but he’s currently watching the live broadcast of him. They’re both from Blue Star, so they may cooperate in the future. He Yu has also heard a lot about him because he’s been making a name for himself in this competition.

[quirky-gardener]

This looks like the trap for entering one of the Unlimited (Infinite) Flow novel's games. If you click on it you are transported into that endless hallway of mirrors where each of the mirrors is a portal to a different horror world but if you find and solve the right one you can get back home and get some perks like eternal life or extending your lifespan, improved health and some magical items

You know AI guys are living in another reality bc the amount of terror I would feel if a computer sent me, unprompted, an image of a blank-expression copy of myself trapped in a endless hallway of mirrors is frankly indescribable

[shyuurin-writes]

Repentance Game has been quietly updating and is now on chapter 12, with new chapters posting every Saturday morning AEST for the foreseeable future.

Available on Royal Road

Scribblehub

Wattpad

[myreputatioooon]

"smell of realistic smoke"???

Oh that's a red flag, bro already knows his fate

[newedem]

[usagifuyusummer]

Best friends or something...

Feeling so much like a dead corpse lately. It's probably the stress of the semester... and being mistreated/ underappreciated a lot. Still, I'll manage.

Happy Valentine's Day to those who celebrate it, by the way! It's a coincidence that I drew something mildly mushy on the occasion, lol. It wasn't really my intention. Just gotta let these thoughts (Toxic YAOI LMAO) about them out, and then I can get back to business. If you're confused, that's just how I draw younger Jimmy and Curly. What an odd pair of friends(?)...