#i would love more real plotted threads when i'm active again so i'll need to get better at plotting with ppl :')

[cosmicloved]

[thekimspoblog]

I still think his greatest sin as Jimmy was how he got Irene ostracized by her elderly friend group 😭

How horrible is that? To be bullied and excluded in the last years of your life?

And even when he went back and “fixed” it by making himself the vilain, it was still too little too late. She still went through all that suffering. For his greed

Alright. I also got a lot of thoughts about that episode. But put a pin in that. Short answer: It's not Saul's fault that all of Irene's friends suck.

True, but…Jimmy still did her dirty :(

And it’s sad, because he clearly really liked her and his other elderly clients. He just put his hustle first over their best interests

Mostly what bothers me about that plot thread is that he lied for... literally no reason. There's nothing he said to Irene's friends that he couldn't have just said to Irene directly. If you're going to interfere with the case (however illegal that might be) JUST TELL IRENE YOU DON'T LIKE ERIN! She would have listened! Hell just tell her you need the payday. To me the cat cookies at the beginning of that episode - how Jimmy buys them from the store and then pretends he baked them - symbolizes this weird pointless pathological need to overcomplicate things.

Yeah, fair point on the overcomplicating for plot reasons regarding Jimmy & Irene. He *should* have just told her directly

I guess it ties into his pathological need to scam and wheel and deal? Bit of a stretch on the writers’/creators benefit there lol

Again, part of my brbabcs headcanon is that god isn't real but the devil is.

But Chuck wasn’t wrong when he compared Jimmy to an alcoholic. It is like an addiction for him

So, do you kind of conceptualize that some of McWexler’s bullshit is literal devilish temptation?

Not temptation exactly. More akin to a cruel determinism. I'm still working out exactly how this lore works. All I know is the POV camera seems to have a psychological effect on the characters. Makes them act erratic.

I think the underlying rule is that whatever entities are controlling these characters (yes it's an allegory for the writers but it goes deeper than that) will go to any lengths to be entertained. And it finds violence especially entertaining. Does it actively make the characters do bad things? Maybe maybe not. But if it gets bored it will make bad things happen, whether the characters are obliging it or not.

Don't know if you've seen "Hereditary" but I pull a lot of inspiration from that. That and Westworld, of course.

On a tangential note, I'm quite into ARGs and "dark video games lore explained" videos. I am currently watching a deep dive into "Inscryption" and it's quite interesting!

But in the broadest sense, I'll just say that because BCS is a prequel, obviously free will is not as simple as it would appear to Jimmy McGill. Certain things were simply ordained to happen. In fact Kim's death might have been ordained to happen too, and that is why her living to 2016 signifies something gone wrong.

That’s an interesting idea!

I do love both Hereditary and Westworld (especially S1. I was a little disappointed by S2 and didn’t finish S3). But that idea of not only “destiny” in the sense of inherited/intergenerational trauma and actual hereditary traits, and also actual Destiny in terms of Fate is very fun to contemplate; and how much of a character’s actions are actually free will and how much is pre-destined.

With Jimmy in particular, that idea of self-fulfilling prophecy and his (in)ability to change in spite of or because of constantly trying to run away from himself and the consequences of his actions is very compelling. But it’s there for Kim, too! She wants “more” and seems to be constantly running away from the instability and deprivation of her past and towards some idealized, self-actualized version of herself

So that idea of a godlike or demonic force manipulating and controlling that element of destiny for them is a cool idea!

I feel like Jimmy "avoided" consequences for his actions (at least in the context of Season 1) in the sense that sliding under a sixteen wheeler and getting dragged for ten miles is "avoiding" getting hit by it. lol! Like sure, he never did time for the Chicago Sunroof incident, but it still followed him for the rest of his life. Maybe some would say he deserved to have his life ruined way back then and that would have been the end of it. And I can't really argue with that reading given that less connected people have their lives ruined for a lot less all the time. But I would point out that after that he completely reorganized his life and at least TRIED to be a good boy for almost a decade, before giving up and reverting back to his true colors.

Even though the brothers both had a hand in each other's downfalls, I don't think either of them were really the cause. Yes, Jimmy made a fool of Chuck, but Chuck was a control freak with no humility. Even if Jimmy had stayed far away in Illinois, I suspect something else would have inevitably caused Chuck to implode. Hell, if you buy into my extended theories about the rivalry between Kim and Chuck, it kind of seems like Jimmy was just the middleman in the first place.

And on the opposite side of the coin, conformity just isn't in Jimmy's nature. It's not like he would have walked a straight path if only his brother had been supportive. Chuck was probably onto something that Jimmy simply didn't have the right disposition for this level of responsibility. The problem is this institution IS corrupt to a fascial degree, so the fact that Saul makes a mockery of it might ironically be a sign that he's the only one in the room taking this seriously.

I mean, I think I've mentioned this before, but I just cannot abide the notion that Saul was some bane on the justice system when THE PROVOCATION DEFENSE is still widely accepted precedent.

I think that actually gets at one of my biggest problems with the way the show handles characterization. There's so much overwhelming evidence that the legal profession itself and the general concept of ambition is at the heart of why these people have such severe mental health problems, and yet it's never directly addressed as such.

Chuck put all of his self-worth into his career and had no plan for retirement even though he NEEDED to be thinking about that.

Howard's good reputation wasn't wholly unearned, but he still was an emotionally stunted person who had never experienced real hardship as the result of his privileged life. Had he survived that encounter with Lalo, maybe he would have learned sometimes people hate you for no reason and you just have to be okay with that. Sometimes you do everything right and you still lose. He would have realized he was so caught up in preserving a legacy he was losing everything else.

Jimmy's mistake was not his crimes, but the times he tried to be something besides a criminal. That he rose above his benign state as a petty crook, got access to the knowledge usually gatekept by "responsible" people and predictably used that power in an irresponsible way.

And no Kim! Jimmy is not a bad influence on you, nor are you a bad influence on him! The entire romance is a red herring. You're "poisoned" because you're poisoning yourself - working yourself into an early grave, tearing your hair out trying to bail water on a sinking ship. I'm 100% confident that if she wasn't working a job which riled her up so much, she and Jimmy would be able to have a normal relationship. This is why the CFLA plot point niggles me so much - wanting to help people the oppressed, and not wanting to hurt people in positions of power are diametrically opposed goals - and whether or not Kim is still involved with Jimmy by the end of the story, she's set up to repeat her mistakes because she still hasn't dealt with that.

Humility means a peaceful if mundane life, but it also means accepting the world around you as it is. Ambition means pain - being the hero to some and the villain to others but never having the comfort of anonymity either way. Wielding power does weird things to the human brain, and that's a truth which goes far beyond individual case studies of whether any singular exercise of that power was subjectively good or bad.

Gus's story arc would probably be the closest the show comes to tackling this binary head-on. But still, it's muddied because I'm just left wondering how much further he could have gotten if he didn't waste his energy on a revenge quest against the Salamancas. To me, BCS is less about conventionally moral or immoral behavior. And more about questions of which stupid mistakes prevent the characters from becoming platonic ideals of themselves.

Haha, I love your comparison of Jimmy avoiding consequences to sliding under a truck only to be dragged by it! He avoids formal consequences and has a very difficult time truly admitting fault most of the time, but he does get bit in the ass bu the inevitable fallout of his schemes. So I guess he gets hit by natural consequences. I agree that he and Chuck were both instrumental in bringing each other down, but it likely would have happened either way for them. Chuck was clearly very triggered by his divorce (which happened for some reason) and his mental health was a ticking time bomb from the stress of his overwork, similar to Kim. The trouble with Jimmy was a chronic stressor that was constantly adding to everything else going on with Chuck.

I don’t personally see a rivalry between Chuck and Kim. I think he initially sort of patronizes her, but once she calls him out, he respects her and I think him trying to warn her away from Jimmy was a genuine attempt to “save” a promising young by-the-book attorney from Jimmy’s “corrupting influence”

I have so much empathy for Howard. Is he kind of a smug prick and unnecessarily punishes Kim with doc review? Yeah. But he is also the only character who really commits to trying to make positive changes in his life and his approach to other people. I understand Kim’s resentment of him, but her (and Jimmy’s) campaign against him was so vindictive and unnecessary.

With your point about the opposition between helping oppressed people versus propping up people/systems in power, I think that goes back to the larger flaw of both BrBa and BCS being so character-driven that they don’t even bother to interrogate the systemic problems causing the issues in characters’ lives. I don’t think either Jimmy or Kim have interest in being a revolutionary and overthrowing the system. But they do both genuinely seem interested in doing what good they can within the bounds (more or less) of the legal system

Jimmy as Saul has more of a stick-it-to-the-man attitude, which is why he’s often happy to bend or straight up break the legal procedures or break the law himself to benefit his clients or himself

I do wish BCS had given us more with Gus’s story line. I don’t think we really saw him change all that much between BCS and BrBa, and he’s such a fascinating character

[lostcndfound]

Rules

Content

Generally low activity. This can come and go, and there might be times, and threads, that I'm fast to reply to, but it's not the norm. Expect a week on average. Once it's been a week, feel free to send me a reminder! I need them sometimes, and pretty often stuff just gets missed.

I don't intentionally drop a thread without saying. If there hasn't been a reply, let me know.

Triggers can be tagged as needed. I check the rules of folks I follow and try to remember any asked for, but humans fuck up. So whilst I'll try, and I'll tag the big ones I can think of, I can't guarantee it all the time.

NSFW, violence, substance use, any other number of more 'mature' themes might come up, but anything that would be considered more sensitive will be discussed ooc beforehand. You're not going to get thrown into the deep end in a random starter, and I ask the same in return. Talk to me first.

If a thread at any point makes you feel uncomfortable, whether you woke up feeling differently than the day before, or my character flirted with yours and you ooc don't like that, just say. Things can be re-written. It's not hard to change course without hindering my muse's ability to be himself. Even if it did, you, as a real person, will always matter more.

Gifs are not necessary, but they're welcome. As are icons. I will usually use a gif when posting starters, or replying to asks. Does not need to be continued or matched. 90% of gifs are made by me.

Shipping, pre-established relationships, and plotting!

Shipping is cool. Always a fan. Will is multi-verse and multi-ship.

If you want to ship, just ask. Even if I don't see it, or there doesn't turn out to be enough chemistry between muses, there will never be any negative feelings with being asked.

Shipping and plotting doesn't have to be followed through on to be talked about. Personally I love the theoretical and chatting about potentials, even if it doesn't happen.

I'm not the best at plotting. I like the mid point of coming up with a basic idea and direction, and then seeing what happens. Always willing to try and plot, though, and also up for just winging it.

Pre-established relationships are always good. If you want to wing it and jump into one without discussion, then it has to be some flavor of platonic. If we talk about it, we can make up specifics and go further.

The easiest way to get interactions going is to reply to an OPEN or send an ASK.

Other bits and shits

I don't keep up with celebrity gossip and news. If something big and potentially important for me to know - about FCs and the such - has happened, feel free to say. Me using a fc doesn't mean I support them, it more means that a cursory google didn't reveal anything that worried me.

No banned FCs in general, but a preference for actors if a FC is used.

Take as long as you need to reply to a thread. I mean it. Weeks, months even. If I'm still here, and I see your reply, I'll pick up the thread again no questions asked.

I'm in my 30s. I don't RP even general threads with people under 18, and ask you don't follow me.