#timeline is a little weird

[kinnenvy]

qaf drabble #1

early season 3 break up small little drabble that i need out of my drafts :) , brian centric

Brian is on his third cigarette and his second beer. It’s Wednesday and Woody's tightly packed, but Brian's head is too all over the place to truly pay attention to the crowd around him. Not about its quantity nor its quality.

Unfortunately, despite his inability to acknowledge his surroundings, all the whispering happening around him easily reaches his ears. He can't escape the judgment being directed his way. Callous words about how tired, how haggard he looks, how dispirited and pale. How the god of Liberty avenue has stumbled and fallen to the depths of the worst kind of hell. Lonely and apathetic and too tired to hide himself behind his shell of glamour and charm.

He lights a fourth cigarette and instead of a third beer he gets himself a glass of whisky.

"Hey… Brian." Someone sitting on his left strikes a conversation, or at least tries to. Brian glances at him and hums. "Do you remember me? We… Met at Babylon last Sunday." 

Brian rarely remembers, but he looks back at him anyway. The mole on the skin beneath his eye vaguely reminds him of the backroom, of loud music filtering through the air and mingling with Justin's voice in Brian's ears.

He's the last guy they've had together and Brian is not sure whether he wants to fuck him or make sure to never see him again.

He doesn't try to do either, he just goes back to gazing into his drink and smoking his cigarette.

"We've been looking everywhere for you!" Ted and Emmett appear out of thin air and unknowingly save him from finally giving in and taking the guy home, just to hear his voice, look at his mole and pretend there's three of them in his bed.

"Yeah, it's pecs night at Babylon, what are you doing here?" Emmett sits beside him in a way that’s entirely too deliberate. He very openly reaches for Ted's hand, he glances at Brian in a way that he probably thinks must be subtle, and joins their fingers together, likely expecting Brian to point and sneer at them just to distract himself. Brian has to look away instead.

He picks at the damp label on one of his empty beer bottles, he stays there until it’s deep into the night and waits, he's not sure for what.

"This new account is bullshit." Brian groans in the agency corridors, Cynthia snickers and rolls her eyes as she walks next to him fidgeting with all the new documents they've acquired in the meeting.

"Why would they launch a new cassette player in 2003? And why do they expect them to sell?" She, as she often does, speaks out Brian's exact thoughts.

"I don't know and it's coming from one of our oldest accounts, so I can't even tell them to fuck off. They better pay me before they go bankrupt." He massages his temples and wipes off some of the tinted moisturizer he's started packing over his face. Wordlessly Cynthia helps him fix the patch of skin he's uncovered and Brian slams the door of his office harder than he should because of it.

Two days later a copy about nostalgia comes across his desk: You only know what you'll miss, once it's already gone. The accompanying images of Walkmans knockoffs and cassettes don't do much to divert his thoughts from blond hair and blue eyes.

When Brian comes home that afternoon he notices his wardrobe only has his clothes in it, he scans the loft and it takes him just a superficial glance to be able to tell that Justin sneaked in during his office hours and took away most of his things. His eyes linger on the computer and the graphics tablet he got him still sitting where he last left it. 

There's a feeling he'd rather not describe sinking to the pit of his stomach, it reaches so low inside him that Brian convinces himself his only choice is to bounce back and start looking up again.

He cleans up and for the first night since the Rage party, he wears his best fuck clothes and skips Woody's to get himself right to the backrooms.

The next logical step is to steal Michael away from his quiet evenings with Ben and let him distract him from the turmoil inside him. Allow his company to patch him up and hold him together, like he used to do when his dad got too drunk and Brian had to wear bruises for weeks, when his mom was too distracted by her own listlessness, to realize Brian needed her comfort.

"We can't stay too long, Ben has to wake up early tomorrow." Michael shouts in Brian's ear so he can hear him over the music and the yelling happening on the Babylon dancefloor. From this close he can see he still has a dark spot around his left eye from the blow he delivered to his face, without thinking Brian traces it with the tips of his fingers.

"What? The professor's working on a Saturday morning?" He asks, mostly just to fill the silence that can't be hidden by the loud bass beating and pulsating in the air around them.

"He's got a check up at the hospital." Michael says it like it's nothing special, but Brian has always been able to see right through him with ease. They dance a little closer after that, their hands gripping tightly each other's clothes.

"You better take him home then. It's already time for my scheduled backroom appearance anyway." Brian pushes him away only a handful of minutes later, Michael looks up at him and pats his shoulder.

"Listen, I know I behaved like an ass… But be careful, okay? Don't let this whole thing drag you down." Michael says, but can't look directly into his eyes anymore. Brian knows his outburst during Linds and Mel's party is still haunting him, even though letting his emotions get the best of him is Michael's specialty, just like hiding them is Brian's.

"What thing?" Brian furrows his eyebrows and shrugs, feigning ignorance, "I've never felt better."

"...Right." Michael releases a sigh between exasperated and amused, then kisses Brian's cheek and walks back to the bar where Ben, Emmett and Ted are deep into conversation.

Brian watches until all four of them decide to leave and start moving towards the wardrobe. Emmett looks back into the crowd one last time and raises a hand to wave at him, Brian raises his chin to acknowledge him, then he turns on his heels and lets himself be dragged away by the first man who hits on him.

Things slowly start to settle again. Brian stops paying short, blond twinks to wear baggy clothes and lay flat on his bed, while he rams them from behind. Hopefully soon he'll also stop seeing Justin in every trick he brings home.

For now he's cursed to see his face every time someone begs for his cock. Also whenever he steps into the diner.

Brian is starting to question the amount of money he's spending to put him through school, considering how he seems to be working every shift from Monday through Friday. He doesn't comment on it though, or on anything else, and he purposely gives his order to another server.

He's started going to tanning salons again, he's cut his hair and he is generally looking much better than he did weeks ago. Despite all of that, he keeps his sunglasses on, not wanting Justin's furtive glances to see anything he isn't supposed to. Also to shield himself from seeing how little his own ailments seem to be reflected in his inquisitive blue gaze.

[forgettable-au]

FORGETTABLE AU: CHAPTER ONE

[MASTERPOST][PROLOGUE][NEXT CHAPTER]

PAGES:

21-23 , 24-27 28-31 , 32-35 36-39 , 40-43 44-47 , 48-52 53-56 , 57-60 61-64 , 65-72

[cassandragemini]

love lies bleeding inspired me to draw more huge lesbians so heres misha and her pocket sized butch

[canisalbus]

Building up on both of does anon posts, Machete and Vasco being historical figures that make waves every so often on tumblr feels very canon and not too far from actual tumblr's favourite historical figures.

And also, I feel that Machete shouldn't go that unnoticed by scholars. Being this powerful member of the clergy that escaped many assassination attempts before being killed and had a personal relationship with the pope. Like this man was a deathly and important part of the inquisition, but also left behind rumours of a same-sex relationship with a married politician.

I can definitely see him becoming a point of interest for some historians, especially does who studied the inquisition or the clergy. That's probably how Vasco's paintings of him got discovered and documented and how their relationship stopping being considered a rumour started by his now-death enemies, but an actual theory with some weight behind it.

Idk why but I'm becoming very invested in the ways history would treat and remember them, way too many scandals and drama for them to be forgotten in time.

You do make a very convincing point.

People are getting so invested in their hypothetical in-universe reputation and are clearly putting some serious thought into it and it's getting me hyped up as well ;_;

[codenamethebird]

More Hades 2 rambles from me! Though this time round it's a continuation of a point I made in this post.

Specifically, that I think the final boss of the Surface will be a living human mortal.

A couple people on that post disagreed that it would be a human, mostly just because of boss fight mechanics. Which I do get, but this is my not so little refute of that idea (all in good fun of course, I very well might be wrong! I just have thought a bunch about it since then and wanted to ramble about it).

I'll be getting into later how the game could have a hard mechanically satisfying human final boss later, because first I want to talk about how it would make sense naratively. Not because anyone remotely argued this point, I just think it's interesting haha.

So let's go back for a moment to Hades 1, and it's final boss, Hades himself. On a mechanical sense, it makes total sense, Hades is the god and master of the underworld Zag is trying to escape. He would be the final obstacle. But what really makes Hades work as the final boss, is the story and emotional reason he's there.

The plot of Hades is ultimately about Zag's messy relationship with his dad. And that final boss fight is an ongoing conversation with him. While irl you and your questionable dad constantly fighting to death is not a great way to fix your problems, these are weird bound to underworld greek gods. Death is their weird love language for like half this cast haha. There is a reason Death is one of, if not the main love interest.

Okay now that I've established that, let's look at the one final boss we do know from Hades 2, Chronos. Now it's Grandpa's time to shine. Unlike Hades 1, he fits a lot cleaner into a more traditional villian role. The monster who literally takes over your house and takes your family hostage.

In that way, it is a personal fight for Mel to save her family, but Mel lacks a specific personal connection to Chronos himself. Obviously there's the whole Grandpa thing, but she wasn't like raised by him or anything. He is a convient big bad she can hate simply and wholeheartedly. While he does try to challenge her beliefs at times, Mel will never listen to him because of the whole family kidnapping thing, and Gramps equally doesn't want to engage with her either. He just wants to be a dick to her.

While I'm a firm believer in the "We (the gods) are actually the bad guys" theory, I don't think Chronos is secretly an angel. He did you know eat his kids and that entire scene with Hades and him just reeked of shitty dad vibes. While Chronos might be better for humanity, I think he really is using them as a prop and doesn't genuinely care about them. (This is a derail, but I do think the human army side of things including Prometheus will turn on Chronos at some point. Specifcally that they are already planning to).

But yes, basically, while I adore Chronos as a villain, you get none of the character growth from either party that you got between Zag and Hades in the first game. Obviously, we are still in early access, so there's more dialouge to be had. But from what we have seen, those two are not changing the other. So this is my roundabout way to say that must mean the Surface boss is the one that is going to be all about Melinoe's character growth.

I don't think I need to explain why fighting a human would be a fascinating place for character growth for humanities #1 hater Melinoe. Mel's the Hades equivalent in this game (not the Zag), who will not listen to anyone who disagrees with her. Getting beat up by a human might actually start to get it through her head.

But also I want to dig into why I don't think the final boss will be another Titan. I've seen Atlas thrown around a bunch as a possible final Surface boss. Also Typhon... I'm certain there are others. But I don't know what they would add to the narrative, especially as a final boss? I think there's more evidence for Atlas, so I'll focus on him.

It would make some sense, he was the leader of the titan rebellion and much like Prometheus, in certain versions of the myth he was also freed from his punishment by Heracles! Which considering Heracles suspicious lack of dialouge so far, and the dialouge he does have being a god hater, I do think he's the one who freed Prometheus in this game.

But other than those connections, what does Atlas add to make him an interesting antagonist to Mel? He's not particularly tied to humanity, and while his punishment sucked he did lead a rebellion against the gods (and traditionally the reasons have nothing to do with humans).

Mostly, in my opinion, if the game was going to have a titan also be the final boss for the Surface, it wouldn't be Atlas. It would be Prometheus. He's the powerful titan who has a legitimate gruge against the gods and who can engage with Mel in interesting ways, challenging her stance against the gods. But they have already used Prometheus, I don't know how they could write Atlas (or whatever titan/god) in a way that would be more interesting than Prometheus, and rival the Hades boss fight for thematic weight. Also, it would be 2 titans in a row, which isn't nessisarily a bad thing, but still.

I've also seen people throw around it might he Ares, which I will admit would I would be way more excited for that another titan. Theres some interesting ideas to be had with an Olympian who has betrayed the gods. But we already have dialouge with Athena where she says how Chronos' armies motivations wouldn't line up with Ares'. And I feel like going from a dude only obsessed with war to someone fighting for some kind of higher cause would be a jump in character. Not impossible, but a little weird.

And ultimately, I just think that a Human would serve the purpose better as an antagonist to Mel who would shake her worldview on living mortals in particular. A fight with Ares would mess with her relationship with the gods, but not as clearly with humans.

Okay now that I've talked about themes, how about what people actually had an issue with lol, how would a final boss with a human make sense from a boss fight perspective. I have three main ideas, that don't really contradict each other and could all exist in the fight.

1st idea: multiple enemies. We've heard that there are human armies, the final boss could possibly be a leader of them. We could have hords of enemies, could have select recognizable commanders that have different skill sets, etc. None of the Surface boss fights have multi bosses in them (they have random mobs but none like the sirens or Theseus and Asterius), so I don't think it would be strange to have it. And while stretching the definition of a human boss a bit, these other bosses could be ghosts and other kinds of beings (I just think the main boss should be a breathing human).

2nd idea and tbh my main one. Have them be a Witch! Or some other kind of magic user. I feel like this should be obvious, but a lot of the theming around Hades 2 is witchy/magic stuff and it's wild we don't have a major witch enemy yet (other than obviously Hecate, but for obvious reasons I don't count her).

I'm thinking some kind of High Priestess of Chronos kind of character, we still don't know exactly how Chronos was revived and this could tie in, but there's a bunch of ways you could spin a magic user! I think it would be a prime place to put a narrative foil to Melinoe. A fellow Witch whose family was stolen away by the gods who is looking for justice. Maybe when finally looking into a mirror, some of the stuff Melinoe's been told will finally breach her thick headed skull haha.

I don't think I really need to get into the technical about how a witch fight could be cool. But one idea, tying into my first point, a magic user could have mind powers and compell powerful beings to fight for them. This could be the Zag boss fight of borderline crack theories or even maybe the aforementioned Ares who maybe got captured during his war path. A magic fight doesn't need possessed enemies, but it could be cool.

And finally, my 3rd idea. You might be going, but how could a human be more powerful than Prometheus? Well first point magic, but more seriously, just have them be boosted by Chronos and/or other allies. I mentioned a theory about a high priestess sort of character (the power of God and ani--), but more specifically, if they do go the route of a foil to Melinoe, she has her boons from the gods. Much like Theseus in Hades 1, the final surface boss could gain the boons of Chronos/Prometheus/and the like. Maybe even a Chaos boon, they have already aided Chronos once, and there's a decent chance the humans might betray Chronos at some point so Chaos might be chill with them. This could also be a way to introduce more titan characters and the like without needing to make models for them haha.

But yes, tldr, magic human gives us both the thematic weight of it being a human, witch stuff to parallel Melinoe, and just cool powerful magic fight as a final boss (and it could parallel the Hecate boss fight, the first boss u fight and the last being magic based).

[lukolabrainrot]

Hey there, i’m so happy I found your tumblr, it’s been such a joy to read and a validation for my own theories and observations.

I wanted to ask about your thoughts on Italy. You mentioned multiple times that you’re an Italy truther and so am I, I always felt like something went down in Italy and it was pivotal. The way it started off with them clearly beefing and throwing shade at each other and by the end of it they came out better than before which I find interesting. Following Italy, we had the NY premier, which A showed up to and we have that video of N hugging her which looked very off fo me and then we had the infamous BRAZIL. I just really would love your thoughts on what you suspect happened from the start of Italy to Brazil specially that there was A appearance in the middle of all of that and how you think it may have impacted L/N’s behavior, conversations moving forward with the tour.

So I guess my question has 2 parts:

First, what the hell happened in Italy? lol

Second, your theories around A’s surprise appearance in NY between the Italy and Brazil and how that affected the dynamics between L/N/A.

Thank you!!

Hello thank you, and welcome!!!!

Italy

I shared some of my thoughts on that here. Basically, I think there was a significant emotional release between them after Milan, they had a major conversation addressing pent up deep feelings that they had been keeping from each other for a while, and then got on the same page emotionally. I also personally think that by Verona, they were physically acting on those feelings as well, which is why I think we saw such a positive shift in the nonverbal cues between them. This is also when we started getting the "boyfriend" pics of L, which I think was VERY significant. I think multiple things went down with them in private in Verona, and I think they acknowledged thier deep connection and had some major realizations that their romantic feelings for each other were reciprocated. Now, did A know about all this? I am almost certain that she did. Which might have resulted in what happened/the energy at the NYC premiere...

NYC Premiere

This premiere was VERY interesting to me. Here are my thoughts in relation to what was going on between L/N/A:

I think that a lot of the nervous energy that we saw from L (besides the fact that he just doesn't do that great with red carpets) came from the fact that he was very anxious about A getting out to the press, ESPECIALLY with everything that I believe went down between L/N in Italy. I have mentioned before but I believe there was some overlap between L/A, AND I believe that L did not want to come out as being in any type of relationship while he was on the tour. I do not believe this relationship with A was ever very serious for L, BUT I think A, as I have said, had had her sights set on riding his coattails and trying to get fame/attention from being in his orbit. And that hadn't quite panned out, so she was holding on for dear life because she saw an opportunity slipping away.

Therefore, I believe A surprised him at the premiere, and he was kind of flipping out for various reasons.

I am going to say this once, and I am very confident in this. N & A are NEVER going to be friends!! NOT. GOING. TO. HAPPEN. So personally, and this is just a theory, but I think that hug between them and getting it leaked to the internet was A sending a message to L and making it almost impossible for L to quietly untangle himself at that point. Because I think he was already starting to pull away.

I also always found it very interesting that NOTHING came out to the press about A being his girlfriend at the event when a TON of people saw her at the premiere. But then she was introduced officially ON THE DAY OF THE PART 2 PREMIERE 🤔 Like something just STINKS, and A is so messy and not subtle, that it isn't that difficult to see a lot of the roads lead back to her on all this...

I think it was also very telling that L went with N to the Chaos Dinner (which is totally not his normal scene). Yes, maybe it was for the exposure, but with the nature of the event, I think he went FOR N. And they were looking 🔥🔥🔥

So I feel overall that by NYC, L/N were seriously thinking about moving forward with a romantic relationship sometime after the tour ended, A was STARTING her spiral, showed up to make a statement (I truly don't think he had anticipated her showing up or wanted her there tbh), L had to appease her the rest of the trip in NYC + he probably felt kind of guilty about how everything went down, and L/N kind of had to keep a lot of things (their energy with each other) on the DL because A was at the event.

We also have to remember that this event was literally RIGHT after Italy, so I am SURE emotions were high and L/N were dealing with a lot of complex things BTS.

And then I believe all of these heightened emotions between L/N came to a climax (no pun intended 😂) when they got to Brazil, and A went into FULL freak out mode (which I talked about here), but L/N were getting closer and closer, which is how we got what we did for the rest of the tour (which I have talked about in my timeline theories).

[flysafepapi]

Helaena rarely says anything that doesn't mean something significant, so I need to know what she meant by "This one has stopped singing" because I KNOW it's not just as simple as that.

Tell me what you know.

[solargeist]

for over a week now i keep thinking abt grian and kid xelqua. something abt him taking care of this alternate universe child version of himself. i just stare at the ceiling and my eyes blur

[martlet-my-beloved]

I like the idea of Martlet staying with Toriel and help her protect Frisk, Not gonna lie, it would be really funny if Ceroba, Starlo and his gang also stay in the ruins to help Toriel watch out for humans, while Dalv is just living in Snowdin :3

the rest of the gang have their own place in this au :))) we'll see them wayyyy later, but it wont hurt to show yall what theyve been up to since uty!

dalv's still chilling in snowdin, though he visits starlo and the gang every once in a while for bar night and performs there! his new children books have been getting popular at snowdin's librarby :))

starlo and the feisty five are still up to their shenanigans in the wild east, putting up shows and bringing in plenty of tourists. they help out the farm when they have the time. ceroba's also working at the farm nowadays. the mansion feels way too big for just one monster so she moved into the farmhouse

they have a mail system to keep in touch ever since martlet ended up in the ruins :D usually dalv and sans meet once a week and they exchange letters. martlet likes hearing about whatever's going on outside the ruins and the others are just glad to know she's doing alright ever since uhhh....... the incident

also shitty bonus pic lol

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[hideousvampire]

i mentioned the au thingy where daniel, johnny(cade), jeremy, and teddy are brothers so i drew shit

just so you guys know johnny and teddy are adopted and jeremy is daniels cousin who lives with them because of ummm the eight is enough lore

[stuckinapril]

.

[forgettable-au]

You guys don't yet comprehend the mess I made to make the undertale timeline make sense in this AU LMAO😭😭😭but you'll find out soon enough.......

But like....what was I supposed to do? The timeline makes no sense to begin with.....

[alackofghosts]

it always makes me so happy when people say my ardbert/wol art feels joyous 🥹 i always really wanna get that across.....

[doodledrawsthings]

Is mj, clover and luka in a poly relationship or am I missing something/lh

Yep

[suna1suna1]

I have seen so much art of Maria that I didn’t even need a reference to sketch her lmao

[bauliya]

i have a solution for the whole "if tim watched the graysons at 3 it completely fucks the whole timeline" which is he didn't. his parents took him to a random circus and he loved the acrobats and it became his hyperfixation and then he discovered the graysons and THEN he found out robin's identity and it became all too much and in his head since he had to be god's specialest little boy forever and he was 9 and in an extreme parasocial relationship with robin he retconned his own memory into ya my parents took me to see the graysons :3 (2/3 graysons had been fully dead for 10+ years at that point)