#dbz timelines

[harukabluesky-pen]

Mom and son

❁.｡.:*:.｡.✽.｡.:*:.｡.❁.｡.:*:.｡.✽.｡.:*:

↓Bonus (ruff sketch)↓

[darius-1]

[the-real-jojo]

a little glimpse .... a glimpse into my little head .......

the prince and his lieutenant .

[waffle-time-god]

“I guess I always dreamed of being as strong as my dad.”

Future Gohan you deserved so much better.

Full image under the cut

This was supposed to be a quick sketch that turned into several days of casually adding to it until we got this. My first attempt ever at a comic lol.

[paganminiskirt]

Can you believe Vegeta got tortured to death by the person who brutally controlled his entire upbringing and then fifteen years later he’s on amusement park rides and holding hands with his wife. And the most traumatic moment of Gohan’s extremely short life was a widely publicized battle where he defeated a smug, looming, world ending threat through extreme pain and exhaustion then fifteen years later he’s picking up his daughter from preschool and trying to get a better work life balance. Thats what super did for me. Thats all it had to do. It doesn’t matter if it’s a good show or not. They got their silly, careless, gentle ending. Thats the win.

[grimmcheems]

More Future Chichi👊🏽💥

This has been in my drafts for so long🗿💀👩🏽‍🦯anywayssss, just future timeline shenanigans. I’ve made a couple of arts about this future chichi timeline but I don’t think I’ve ever rly provided much context or story for those. Don’t mind her she just hates Goku Black and he terrorizes her unnecessarily bc yeah…….

she has muscles but the jacket hides it (I hate drawing clothes on buff characters bc it ends up hiding most of it😩)

I also thought of Zamasu developing a thing for Chichi bc Goku’s body literally doesn’t allow him to hurt her or their direct family (in this au he had to kill their sons indirectly bc Goku’s muscle memory? just wouldn’t allow it) but like, not rly??!? It’s complicated🙏🏽🗿 he hates humans but his interactions with her confuse him for the most part and since it will never fully be his body there’s always a lingering unknown feeling at the back of his head. Chichi hates his ASS tho. She ain’t holding back fr. I’ve tried to make arts of Chichi and trunks and mai but they never come out good so that’s why I haven’t had any yet.

I will try to get to drawing parts of this au though, at some point…..👩🏽‍🦯Chichi basically raises Trunks and Mai in this btw.

Also the world ends but dw bc a lot of background characters left her things to use and she helps save what’s left of humanity and maybe becomes a goddess for centuries to come but who knows(every time I revisit this au in my head I go insane)🤭

[staerplatinum]

Shin and Turnip's first meeting in the future timeline was... totally different!

[vegeta-bananabluish]

Future Vegeta

@ginrastandsby made this ridiculously beautiful and mouthwatering Vegeta for my triple VegeBul fic As if you weren't dead. Everytime I look at him my brain be dumb <3 Look at all those magificant details! Thank you so much Ginra <3 Summary: In an alternate timeline, Future Vegeta stands as the lone survivor, constantly hunted by the Androids. Desperate to escape his personal hell and confront his inner demons, Vegeta traverses through various timelines of DB grappling with the profound loss of Bulma and their infant son. Future Vegeta x Future Bulma Maintimeline Vegeta x Maintimeline Bulma Teen Vegeta x Teen Bulma

[nectarine-pit]

still chewing on bulma x 18 in a lost future timeline… I can make it worse

[shannonsketches]

If Pan's only 3 in Super Hero it means that

Battle of the Gods

Resurrection F

Universe 6 Tournament

Zamas

Tournament of Power

Broly

Moro

Granolah

and Super Hero

all took place within ~4 years

no wonder Geets is done with everything all the time and Gohan had to lock himself in a room to finish a dissertation, good lord

[hi-there-buddies]

Dragon Ball with everyone else: oh no no consequences for any of you guys. There’s probably gonna be some stakes but it’ll all be ok in the end. It’s the journey that matters!

Dragon Ball with Future Trunks: Lmao fuck you eat shit everyone you love is gone and they will NEVER come back :D

[megamozartx]

"Hey Mozart, what kinds of things do you draw?"

Occasionally good, mostly shitposting, and apparently I redesigned Piano to be a judgmental goth.

And here's one time I drew Ruby-Spears Bass + Piano + Zero:

I've been drawing since I was 8 years old I'm very serious.

[degenerate-otaku]

taking a moment to appreciate Trunks for wearing such a low cut tank top like if that was any lower we'd get some full on nipple showing and I think that's such a cunt serve from him honestly

[the-real-jojo]

woowwwww new refs for the goober

[secretsofdbz]

Alright, timelines. (link to my old post)

Today I'm going to walk you through the cluster fuck of Toriyama not paying attention to what he writes from the Trunks arc to the epilogue of the Perfect Cell arc.

Reminder that I divide the "Android Saga" in 4 arcs:

Trunks arc (arrival of Frieza to 3yg training),

Android arc (until the time machine is discovered)

Imperfect Cell arc (until Cell absorbs 18)

Perfect Cell arc (+ epilogue of Trunks killing imperfect Cell)

I will also pull Toei and Daizenshu content if needed just to show how bad it gets, BUT that's just to enhance my argument. Everything here is manga-deductible without extra context or content.

As I've shown in the link above, the manga implies 4 timelines:

Forgotten timeline (Cell kills Trunks and steals his time machine),

Lost timeline (the timeline that dead!Trunks traveled to, which did not have a Cell pop in the middle of its Android Saga, otherwise Trunks would've known about Cell),

Future Timeline (the one we know and see, Trunks traveled to a uni where Cell traveled to first, so there's changes and Cell pops up in the Android saga),

Main Timeline (the one we know and follow, to which Cell and Trunks traveled to),

Let's go into details about dates and math and everything first. (under the read more because LONG)

When Future Trunks discovers dead!Trunks' time machine, he states that it comes from age 788, which is 3 years from where he comes from (which means he comes from 785), and that the Machine landed here "4 years ago". 4 years ago was about one year before Trunks first came (aka one year before Meca Frieza stuff).

During the first trip, Trunks states he comes from 20 years into the future.

That means during his first trip, he went from 784/785 to 764.

We also know he's 17 at this point and "will be born in 2 and a half years"

(Baby Trunks is supposed to be ~6 months old by May 12th, 767, so "I warn in 764, I'll be born in 2.5 years, so I was born in 766" works. Ignoring the wikis about Trunks' birthday being June and Future Trunks' birthday being in November, it doesn't matter here, we just need the years))

For Trunks to be 17 during his first trip, he needs to travel from 784 (before his 18th birthday). So by the time he comes back the second time, it needs to be in 785 (so he is 18!); since it takes 8 months to charge the machine (Trunks the Story manga chapter), that works out.

So in terms of trips, we have:

Trunks (both versions) : (early-mid) 784 to 764

Trunks (both versions): (early-ish) 785 to May 12th 767

Cell: 788 to 763

(handy recap sheet)

At the time, for Toei, there were only two Timelines (aka it was both multiverse theory AND dynamic time travel theory, because Trunks becoming aware of Cell who killed him means Trunks isn't killed by Cell... yeah it's all sorts of EHH ??):

(Toei pamphlet for the Super Android 13 movie)

(animedia 1992-1993, "Dragon Ball Z across time special, new year summary")

Anyway, you'd think this would be fine right? The image of Cell killing Trunks while he still had his sword (which he shouldn't since he broke it on 18's arm he never used it again in canon) is anime filler, we're all good.

Except... no. This fucking panel right here. Cell explains "(the machine/bots collecting dna) could've gotten Trunks cells but didn't because we had enough Saiyan cells".

Cell supposedly comes from a timeline where GOKU killed Frieza and Cold. But this god forsaken panel contradicts that. (of course it's just that Tori forgot, but we are DB fans, we take things seriously and word of god of the manga is supreme and can't be wrong)

This means that THIS particular version of Cell doesn't come from the Forgotten Timeline.

The Cell we know and love/hate comes from a timeline in which a future Trunks killed Frieza and Cold, BUT everything still went to shit (Goku + gang dying, dead!Trunks traveling to the past, and coming back to destroy the Androids).

In this timeline, Bulma met Future Trunks (who killed Cold and Frieza) in 764, presumably the gang got all the warnings like in the main timeline, but everyone STILL died. So she invented the Time Machine to send her Trunks to the past (perhaps with different instructions so as to not repeat the mistakes of the Future Trunks she saw 20 years prior).

Here's the thing. There is a way for this timeline to exist. You "just" gotta work on the postulate that "each time there's a time travel to the past, a new branch is created". And "if the time machine travels back in time a second time, it lands in the timeline it first branched out unless it travels back further in time". Rephrased: The "784 to 764" trip created a new branch in 764. The "785 to 767" trip landed in that new 764 branch. However the "788 to 763" trip created a whole new branch in 763.

The Time Machine that was piloted by dead!Trunks actually "traveled further back in time", creating an earlier "branch"... which is why Trunks noticed changes, including Goku's late arrival (or Frieza's earlier arrival, we don't know).

Yes, because Future Goku did not use Instant Transmission to fight Frieza and Cold. We know he didn't because Future Bulma had the coordinates where Goku landed, which is how Future Trunks got said coordinates. If Goku had IT to fight Frieza and Cold, Bulma wouldn't have known where the pod was going to land 3 hours later.

So timelines and where does Cell come from? Well you need a timeline from the Branch that started in 764 (with a Future Trunks' arrival to kill Frieza and Cold) but in which everyone died to the Androids, and in which, when Trunks traveled back home, he was able to destroy the Androids...

Anyway here's my final recap of all the timelines in Z, in which "one time travel is one interference creating a new branch". And this is how we can see where Cell comes from :D

This opens a realm of possibilities!!

Did a version of Trunks stay in the past, during his first trip and got a wish to Shenron to have a way to destroy his androids, so he didn't come back in 767 and didn't grow strong at all? Did the future trunks that warned against the Androids but that timeline still went to shit approached the problem differently?? who knows! Time for fanfics and doujins I guess :D

Peace!

[galexibrain]

Down the rabbithole I go BUT just how is it possible that Future Gohan never tapped into his insane powers like kid Gohan did?

Wasn't the destruction of the world as he knew it and the loss of almost everyone he ever cared about enough to push him over the edge? He could have killed 17 & 18 just by shouting at them loud enough.

And then I thought ... everyone knew Gohan had huge potential early on. His bursts of power when he got angry were always massive, but it was GOKU who realized in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber just how powerful Gohan really and truly was. Like, he went in telling Gohan "come on let's make you a Super Saiyan" and came out like ":V" and "nothing and no one can beat him". It was Goku. It was always Goku and his undying love for and faith in his son. Goku was able to see it, and though he miscalculated a little and it took longer than planned for Gohan to snap, but it was the foundation Goku had built in the time chamber.

Gohan watched Goku fight Cell and wasn't impressed. Gohan never would have believed himself to be capable of more than his father if not for Goku laying it out plain and simple: son, that was all I have. Can you do more?

Future Gohan didn't have that. He lost his father to a fucking virus during a time when none of them had an idea the androids were coming. Then they came, and he lost Piccolo, who was a kind of father figure to him, but Piccolo certainly never pushed him to fight without a pressing reason to.

Had Vegeta lived through the Android's initial attack, leaving him and Gohan as the only ones left, he might have taken Gohan under his wing, in his own way. He might have pushed and pushed and pushed Gohan. Maybe that would have worked. But he died too, as did Krillin, Yamcha, Tenshinhan. Soon, no one was left.

Who would have believed in him like Goku had? Who would push him, and spur him on, and discover those reserves deep within him?

Rage and despair alone weren't enough. They never were. For someone else they might be, but not Gohan. Gohan isn't a natural fighter. His power won't come by itself, not without outside help.

And Future Gohan was already past the breaking point. Whatever potential he had, whatever was hidden within him - it was buried to deep under the rubble of his world crumbling around him.

I'm losing my mind. (Also, call Goku a bad father to my face and I'll throw hands.)