#i think a chemistry teacher did do a breaking bad and make meth

[90smovieolderbrother]

was looking up things about the salamanca twins and i saw someone on reddit say they didn’t like the twins cuz they weren’t realistic. cuz yeah the show breaking bad, the show about a chemistry teacher turned meth dealer, is entirely realistic but two silent cartel assassins is too far fetched.

[rejectedbad]

Rejected Bad: E-Girls

The following is a rejected script from an early season of Breaking Bad.

INT. WALTER'S SECRET LAB - NIGHT

Walter White, a middle-aged high school chemistry teacher turned methamphetamine manufacturer cannibal warlord, stands next to a sophisticated computer system. The room is filled with beeping monitors and equipment. Jesse Pinkman, Walter's former student and partner-in-crime, enters, chewing on a bag of crisps.

WALTER: (smirking) Jesse, I've got a plan that's going to revolutionise our operation. North Carolina and South Carolina have created these digital e-girls for promoting healthy living. They're like AI influencers, targeted at getting people to eat more vegetables. Perfect front for expanding distribution.

JESSE: (swallowing a mouthful) Digital e-whos? What's the big deal?

Walter brings up a video on the computer screen, showing animated e-girls demonstrating healthy habits while promoting vegetables.

WALTER: These e-girls have a massive following. Think about it, we infiltrate their code, make them peddle our product while seeming like genuine health advocates. We'll reach thousands, Jesse.

Jesse smirks, his curiosity piqued.

JESSE: Alright, Mr. White, spill the details. How do we hack these e-girls?

Walter begins typing commands, accessing a hidden chat room frequented by hackers.

WALTER: We need a hacker. Someone who can compromise the program, make it advertise our Blue Sky meth without raising suspicion.

INT. HACKER'S DEN - NIGHT

Walter and Jesse watch on a secured video feed as they connect to the anonymous hacker over the screen. The hacker appears as a hooded silhouette.

HACKER: (distorted but defiant) You've got my attention. What do you need?

Walter leans toward the screen, speaking in hushed tones.

WALTER: We want you to modify the e-girl program. Make it secretly promote our product, but in a way that won't raise eyebrows.

HACKER: (distorted) Consider it done, but it won't be cheap.

Walter winces, contemplating the cost.

WALTER: Name your price.

HACKER HQ - DAY

The e-girl program runs on numerous monitors, displaying customised models of beautifully animated girls. Jesse, wearing an edgy outfit, stands next to one of the hackers after delivering 420 wads of cash.

JESSE: Yo! I need ya to turn up the boob slider on these gals, man.

The hacker hesitates but nods, increasing the boob size on every e-girl model. Suddenly, the program starts to glitch and crash.

JESSE: What the hell, man? Did you break it?

HACKER: (sweating) I-I didn't anticipate what that would do to the underlying code! It overloaded the system.

INT. WALTER'S SECRET LAB - CONTINUOUS

Walter watches the chaos unfold on the video feed, frustration evident on his face.

WALTER: (angry) Jesse, what the hell did you do?

HACKER HQ - CONTINUOUS

Jesse backs away from the flickering and failing screens, panicked.

JESSE: (flustered) I was just trying to have some fun, man! I didn't mean to break your precious e-girls.

The room fills with alarms as the hackers scramble to fix the crash. Walter, infuriated, watches over the video feed.

INT. WALTER'S SECRET LAB - CONTINUOUS

Walter pounds his fist on the table.

WALTER: (angry) We had a chance to capitalise on the e-girls' influence, Jesse! Now it's all gone to hell!

HACKER HQ - DAY - CONTINUOUS

An ambulance races toward the scene as technicians evacuate the facility.

INT. WALTER'S SECRET LAB - CONTINUOUS

WALTER: (disappointed) We missed our shot. We'll have to find another way to expand our reach.

Jesse, regretful, looks down at his bag of crisps.

JESSE: (sighs) Yeah, or maybe next time, I won't go and mess with the boob sliders, huh?

Walter slaps Jesse across the head, then they walk away, leaving chaos behind, searching for a new opportunity to expand their empire.

FADE OUT.

[ruby-rambling]

i am reading up about the breaking bad ending because i'm still not over this and

"Where you start in a story is just as important as where you end. Walter White starts off as a timid chemistry teacher and ends the show as an infamous meth kingpin. But the subtext of that journey is that Mr. White wasn't always so kind and considerate. There are plenty of clues seeded early on in the show that hint that maybe "Mr. Chips" always had the propensity to be petty, vindictive, and violent."

oh d i d h e h u h

"The appeal of Breaking Bad is pretty simple because it asks a question we've all probably wondered at least once. How far would a regular person go, what moral lines would they cross, if they knew they were dying and had to provide for their family? However, by episode five of the show, it's pretty obvious that's just a thin justification for wanton lust for power and petty pride that Mr. White already had."

OH MY HDSKFDH

THIS IS WHAT WILBUR WANTED TO BASE HIS CHARACTER'S STORY AFTER AT THE BEGINNING???

HELP??????????

HOW DID I NOT LOOK INTO THIS FURTHER WHAT

"It's an act of pity, sure, but it's also a genuine offer that would do exactly what Walt is supposedly after—assure that his cancer doesn't bankrupt his family. Even better, he doesn't have to cook and sell meth and murder criminal rivals. Walt turns down the offer angrily and makes a huge scene as he leaves. He can't stand to accept pity, and he doesn't want to build a good life for his family if he's not the one who truly created it. It's about pride, not his family."

"Even his loyalty to Jesse (arguably one of Walt's few redeeming qualities) is off and on, and he often manipulates his poor assistant for his own ends"

"When he tries to convince his family to flee with him, his wife and son attack him, and Walt kidnaps his infant daughter. It's all of Walt's lies laid bare. He chose an empire over his family, and like a certain Shelley poem says, no empire lasts forever. Walt has the money to flee into a kind of witness protection program for criminals, but he's giving up the family that he pretended to do so much for. "

THIS KEEPS GETTING BETTER

@call-me-apple ARE YOU SEEING THIS

"After all, the longer he stays in the game, the higher he rises. But the higher he rises, it gets harder and harder for him to argue that he's just leaving a nest egg for his family. To make things even worse, his cancer goes into remission early on in the show. Sure, it comes back eventually, but the loose justification for his actions—that he'll be dead soon and needs to leave something to his family—is patently untrue for most of the show."

THE POINT

OF THIS FRICKING

CHARACTER

IS THAT HE WANTS POWER

AND HURTS PEOPLE TO ACHIEVE IT

AND DRAGS A KID INTO IT WITH HIM

FORCES HIM TO STAY BY HIS SIDE

AND IS SAYING IT'S ALL FOR HIS FAMILY

WHILE THE SUBTEXT

CLEARLY SAYS HE'S LYING

AND HE CONFESSES IT

AT THE END

I AM GOING TO DIE CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME HELLO?????????

HE'S A PROTAGONIST VILLAIN

WHOSE PERSPECTIVE WE ARE WATCHING

AND PEOPLE THINK HE'S DOING HIS BEST

AND IN ACTUALITY HE IS A GOD AWFUL PERSON

AN DSKDFHKDSHFDGJKDFJLDHKFJ

THAT IS THE POEM C!WILBUR WAS HAVING FUNDY READ

SBDFHKVFLSDJKDDHSFJLFHKJ

I SWEAR I'M NOT HAVING A STROKE

"Even when he dies, it's on his own terms. He's not rotting of cancer but dying in the arms of his true love—the chemistry lab that produces his blue meth."

NEVERMIND THERE ARE TEARS IN MY EYES

"Walt's cancer was just an excuse for him to be the power-hungry villain he'd always wanted to be. As Vince Gilligan once put it, "We always say in the writers' room, if Walter White has a true superpower, it's not his knowledge of chemistry or his intellect, it's his ability to lie to himself. He is the world's greatest liar.""

"How much you want to believe that Walt was a good man is dependent on how much you want to believe his lies. Was he a good man who "broke bad," or was he always a twisted monster who finally got the excuse?"

I AM DONE. I AM LITERALLY DONE. PLEASE LET THE VOID YELL BACK. I NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS EVERYTHING I'VE EVER KNOWN IS SHATTERED BEYOND REPAIR. I COULD. DSJFDKGD

[sylvanfreckles]

Chemistry

This is entirely and forever the fault of @angelfishofthelord and their “The Genre You Struggle With” challenge.

And thus, I present, a schmoopy, silly, rom-com style epoch of the first meeting of Sam and Sam’s Blurry Wife (from the finale). 

Summary: A coffee shop, a sprig of mistletoe, and a barista who just might be Santa’s little helper...looks like Gabrielle and Sam are learning a little more about Chemistry.

* * *

“Good morning, Professor!”

Gabrielle D'Angelo raised a hand in greeting at Nico, the morning barista at Renegade Coffee. She had to duck a little bit to avoid the excessive use of tinsel around the door, but once inside the warm coffee shop she could almost forgive the sheer ton of glitter and sparkle and twinkle around her.

Almost.

“You certainly went all out,” she commented as Nico set a tall, steaming cup of her usual morning order on the counter. “It's barely December and this place looks like a Hallmark exploded in here.”

“Well, you know,” Nico shrugged. “Gloria went a little nuts. She downsized to an apartment this summer, so we get all the decorations that won't fit in her new place.”

“Uh-huh,” Gabrielle nodded. She couldn't help but notice the row of nutcrackers on top of the display case. They were all in different little service uniforms—like a postman, milkman, garbage collector, teacher. She pointed at them, eyebrows raised. “No barista?”

“Some people have no taste,” Nico replied with a haughty sniff before breaking out in a dimpled smile. “What else can I get you, Professor?”

Gabrielle leaned down to study the pastries in the case. She liked that Nico always called her Professor, even though she wasn't teaching this year. It sounded better than “textbook revisionist”, which was her actual profession. “Cheese danish?”

“Coming up. I'll bring it out to you when it's warm.”

She raised her coffee cup in toast and left a ten-dollar bill on the counter. That would cover the coffee, pastry, first refill, and her tip...for now. If she couldn't get through Dr. Adair's notes on the taxonomy of noble gases she was going to need more than this. Not even Nico's secret whiskey flask could get her through Dr. Adair's notes on the taxonomy of noble gases.

Gabrielle made her way to her favorite booth in the corner and began unloading her rolling laptop case. Well...it wasn't actually a case. More of a plastic milk crate on a portable luggage dolly, with her laptop tucked in to one side. From the crate she unpacked three older chemistry textbooks, a half-dozen manuscripts held together by alligator clips, and a Hello Kitty pencil case that contained the pens and highlighters she'd need (shut up, it was lucky).

“Cheese danish for milady?” Nico offered, as soon as Gabrielle had unloaded and booted up her laptop. She accepted the little plate and absently took a bite from the warm danish, ignoring the fork Nico had placed at her side, and stared at the glowing logo as the computer slowly roused itself.

Her laptop was old, still a relic from her graduate days. She always meant to buy a new one when her tax refund hit every year, but something else came up. Car repairs, a friend's wedding, sewage line backing up into her bathroom...there was never enough money. If she could make the deadline on the textbook revisions, though, she should have enough for a new laptop and a new muffler. No more cable ties and duct tape!

As Gabrielle waited, computer slowly idling its way awake, she caught herself staring at the door, wondering if Hippy Man would appear today.

Hippy Man was...well, she really was supposed to be above these things. But with that hair and the little bit of stubble...hey, a girl could still dream, even if that girl had two doctorates and a Very Important Opportunity. Plus, he was probably taken. Or an asshole. Or both!

Hippy Man didn't come in as often as Gabrielle did, unless he was here the three days a week she let herself sleep past 6am. He didn't have a regular order, Nico and the others didn't know him by name, and he never stayed longer than the time he took to drink his tea of the day.

(She knew he favored Chai because he ordered it at least twice a week, and Nico put a cut little accent on when he called out a Chai latte...that was why she knew it, she wasn't snooping.)

The bell over the door jingled (and jingled...and jingled...looks like Gloria replaced the little shop bell with an entire harness of sleigh bells), and in walked Hippy Man. Well, speak of the devil and he shall appear.

He was in the blue flannel today, which was Gabrielle's favorite. The brown one washed out his complexion, and the yellow one was just a no. Between the flannel and the beanie he looked like some kind of beatnik poet, though the muscles in his forearms and the callouses on his hands spoke more to manual labor.

(She wasn't snooping! She was just...bored.)

“Chai latte today, sir?” Nico asked. Ah, good! Hippy Man was coming in regularly enough to start being recognized.

Hippy Man started back, staring from the board to Nico for a moment. Gabrielle wanted to roll her eyes...maybe this wasn't a small town, but it was a small coffee shop. Come to Renegade Coffee enough times and Nico would learn something about you. It happened. Just go with it.

“Yeah, uh, sounds great,” Hippy Man nodded. “Do you have any of those vegan blueberry muffins?”

“Saved one for you!” Nico replied cheerily. God, he was the best. Gabrielle ducked her head, pretending like she wasn't snooping. (Okay, so she was snooping a little bit.) Obviously Nico had noticed that Hippy Man only drank tea and ate the vegan muffins (ew). Nico had probably figured out the guy's entire backstory based on his morning orders.

The bright tones of the Windows theme alerted Gabrielle to the fact that her laptop had finally booted up. Gabrielle shook herself, crammed the last of her danish in her mouth, and started on the arduous process to getting her dinosaur of a machine to log on to the Renegade Coffee WiFi.

Hippy Guy always waited at the counter for his order, which just added to the weird. Most patrons took a seat, relaxed a little, but not this guy. He stood there, hands shoved in his pockets, bowed forward a little as though to hide his ridiculous height.

(Really, instead of Hippy Man maybe she should have called him The Moose.)

“Here you go, dude,” Nico announced, setting Hippy Man's beverage and muffin on the counter. “Enjoy!”

“Yeah, uh, thanks. You too.”

Gabrielle bit back a snort, covering it up with a sip from her coffee (Renegade's own Double Dark Dark blend, guaranteed the strongest coffee in the tri-county area. Hey, the taxonomy of noble gases wasn't a laughing matter). At least Hippy Man was as human as the rest of them.

She rested an elbow on the table and leaned her chin in her hand to watch Hippy Man blunder through an embarrassed apology/explanation for what he'd just said—even though Nico had heard “you too” so many times he didn't even react anymore—while she waiting for the little spinny thing to connect her to the internet. Dr. Adair had probably sent three more emails, each one trying to decide between “the order to which we assign these elements” and “to which order we assign these elements”.

In the corner of her eye she saw her screen go white and leaned back to look at it.

No connection.

Gabrielle frowned and tapped the WiFi icon again.

More spinning. She took a minute to straighten the manuscripts—Dr. Russel's additions to the chapters on heavy metals were probably the best she'd seen yet, especially considering Dr. Russel had her own proofreader and hadn't demanded to revise her entry dozens of times, like Dr. Adair.

The screen flashed white again. No connection.

“Hey, Nico?” Gabrielle called. She noticed Hippy Guy frowning at his phone, but ignored him for the moment (which was difficult). “Is the WiFi down?”

Nico poked his head out of the back, towel draped over his shoulder. “Sorry, Professor. It was acting up last night...guess it's still out there. Gloria said she'd call it in when she gets here.”

Gabrielle sunk down in her chair, biting her lip and staring blankly at her computer. She could always pull up the emails on her phone, she supposed. The textbook itself was in a shared online file so she wouldn't be able to work on that until the WiFi was fixed...but she could go through the manuscripts and make notes by hand. With a heavy sigh she slapped her laptop shut and tugged the first stack of paper over.

Oh shit. Hippy Man was watching her.

Gabrielle bent forward over the table, letting her dark hair fall forward like a curtain to cut him off from view. Sure, he was cute and all, but she didn't really want to get into this with him now.

Hippy Man was standing up.

Don't come over, don't come over, don't come over....

Hippy Man was walking over.

Dammit.

“Hi, I'm Sam,” Hippy Man said, holding his hand out.

Gabrielle blew out a sigh and accepted the gesture. “Gabrielle.”

Apparently that was enough for Hippy Man—Sam—and he pulled out the chair opposite. “So, you're a professor?”

“I'm not teaching at the moment,” Gabrielle hedged. Sam was looking at the books on her table, actually touching one of the old textbooks to turn it so he could see the spine. His eyebrows shot up.

Oh god. Here it comes. She could see the headline now...Local Himbo Knows More About Chemistry Than Distinguished Textbook Revisionist.

“You teach chemistry?” Sam asked.

“I'm...working on the textbook,” Gabrielle said. She braced herself for it. Every time she met a guy—at least the tall, ruggedly handsome, flannel-wearing, beatnik-poet-looking ones—they were always intimidated by her work. Or they broke it down to something less (no, it wasn't the same as his mom putting together the family newsletter...yes, she did have a degree in chemistry...no, that didn't mean she could break bad or whatever, and no, she didn't know how to make meth!).

“That's incredible!” Sam said. He actually had the textbook open, caressing the table of contents. “I think I used this edition my sophomore year—is this the one you're revising?”

Gabrielle stared at him. “Well...we're about three versions ahead, but we're going back to that edition for the section on Amphoterism, Peterson really didn't do it justice even if he did have tenure at the time.”

Sam's eyebrows had shot up even higher, almost into his beanie. Gabrielle had to laugh at herself. “Sorry, shop talk.”

“It's okay,” Sam gently closed the textbook and placed it back on the stack reverently. “I see you in here a lot, you just always seem so busy. I didn't want to disturb you.”

Gabrielle shrugged. She had a lot of work to do. Coming out to Renegade Coffee to do it just felt better than working at home, with nothing but her beta fish to distract her. “And how about you, chai-tea-and-vegan-muffin-man? What do you do when you're not telling Nico to enjoy his meal?”

Sam blushed and stared down at the cup in his hands. God, he was cute, up this close. He even had dimples. “It's just a reflex,” he said defensively. She giggled—actually giggled, like an idiot in a rom-com. Instead of making Sam blush even harder, he peered up at her through his bangs and unleashed a devastating smile.

“So?” Gabrielle insisted. “What do you do?”

“This and that,” Sam shrugged. “Mostly pest removal.”

“Yeah?” she took a sip of her coffee. It was almost cold now...this was the point she usually drank the rest of it in one long shot, but she decided to savor it this time. Nico had snuck in a pump of peppermint flavor, and while she would normally beat him with edition three of A Modern Approach to Chemistry she was willing to forgive him this time. It was almost Christmas. “So, like, mice and roaches and stuff?”

Sam gave a halfhearted shrug. “More...specialized.”

Gabrielle felt her own eyebrows rise. “Specialized pest removal? What, like...coyotes in the crawlspace?”

He held up a hand, forefinger and thumb about a centimeter apart. “Almost. It's...complicated. I'm kind of doing it on the side, taking some time off to deal with...personal stuff.”

Shit, Gabrielle could understand that. When her widowed father had gotten remarried she'd taken almost a year to work with a pharmaceutical company in Canada. She loved her new step-father, sure, but it was hard to see anyone else in her mother's place.

Nico stopped by the table, a fresh coffee in one hand and a hot tea in the other. “On the house,” he explained. “Gloria will be in in about twenty minutes, she said she already called the internet guys.”

“Thanks, Nico,” Gabrielle smiled. She threw back the rest of her coffee in one long pull and set the empty cup to one side before tugging the new, hot cup close.

Nico was staring at her. Well, he was staring from her to Sam and back again.

“What?” Gabrielle demanded.

He pointedly looked up.

For the first time, Gabrielle noticed there was mistletoe hanging from the light fixture above her head.

“Nico!” Gabrielle moaned.

“Oh, sorry, I didn't...see that,” Sam protested. He tried to scoot his chair back but Nico had stuck a foot behind it.

“Either you kiss her or I kiss you, big fella,” Nico said, winking.

Face burning with embarrassment, Gabrielle looked over in time to see Sam give a helpless shrug. He shuffled sideways into the booth next to her and gently caught her chin with one hand.

“Merry Christmas, Gabrielle,” he whispered, leaning down to press his lips to hers.

Her stomach did a little flip, which had nothing to do with the coffee she'd just down, and she found herself unconsciously leaning toward him when he pulled back.

Gabrielle blinked, staring up at the man who was now sitting beside her. “What was that?”

Nico snatched up her empty cups and gave her a wink. “That, my dear Professor, was Chemistry.”

* * *

The challenge:

-Must not deviate into your usual preferred genre of writing (I normally write hurt/comfort, action, and suspense, so this was romance/rom-com)

-Must be written in third-person (done!)

-For added difficulty, add an essential original character (pick between Gabrielle as the OFC version of Sam’s Blurry Wife or Nico the barista as Santa’s little helper)

-Use less than ten tags (not including character/relationship tags) (is “chemistry words” a tag? I looked them up)

-For extra added difficulty write for a ship you hate (Sam/SBW is one I hate if SBW isn’t Eileen...but I named her Gabrielle because I also hate Sabriel)

[notsoguiltykpop]

Old Habits pt 2

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader, Changkyun (I.M) x Reader

Rating: Mature content. Violence, strong language (More of both than the first series)

Genre: Angst, some fluff, humor, action (not sure if that counts as a genre)

Synopsis: Min Yoongi is an ex-gang member of Bangtan, the librarian at your school, and also your boyfriend–which can all get a little complicated. But you’re sure Yoongi’s worth it, complicated past, family, and all. That is, until Bangtan falls into chaos and he’s pulled into the middle of it all. As time goes on, you realize you don’t know your boyfriend nearly as well as you thought you did, and old habits die hard…

Part 1

--

Yoongi wasn’t answering your calls. Granted, it wasn’t from a phone number he would recognize--you had picked up a prepaid phone the day before and texted everyone you could remember the number of. So no word from Yoongi wasn’t entirely odd.  

Over the last year, you had grown accustomed to him ignoring his phone now and then. He would get busy or stressed and the last thing he thought about was checking his messages. But he usually did something to let you know he hadn’t forgotten about you. When your schedules conflicted for weeks at a time, he would leave sticky notes on his desk for you to see, or send flowers with an apology. 

You checked the phone again. Still nothing. With everything that had happened, you thought you would be kept in the loop. Even if Yoongi didn’t personally have time to talk, you thought Jungkook or Taehyung would check in on you. 

“If you stare at it long enough, I’m sure you’ll get the message you’re waiting for.”

For a brief moment, you had forgotten you were sitting in your chemistry class. The professor wasn’t there--he was consistently five minutes late--and you hadn’t noticed any other students come in yet. 

Changkyun smiled, dropping his bag on the floor and taking a seat at your table. “It’s just like how watching water boil makes it go faster. That’s totally how science works, right?” He wiggled his eyebrows jokingly. “Also, you left this in my car.” He put your cell phone down in front of you. “Sorry about that.”

“Get away from me,” You said coldly, snatching your phone and checking the messages. You weren’t really surprised to see Changkyun--he had said he went to the same school, so you figured it was only a matter of time before your paths crossed. He had an avengers band aid across his nose that gave you a slight feeling of satisfaction. 

“Can’t. We’re lab partners,” He shrugged, and when your eyes narrowed he quickly raised his hands in defense. “Total coincidence, I swear. I was taking Professor Fell’s class, but he had a heart attack. I either had to get thrown in this one or retake the class next semester. And Professor Elm said you didn’t have a partner…” 

“And I liked it that way,” You frowned. Dating Yoongi wasn’t consequence free. Every time you tried to get to know people, they asked a million questions about him. Like, why is he so angry? Why are you dating him? Doesn’t he yell a lot? 

It was easier to just avoid people than try to explain.

“I’ll stay out of your way, I swear,” Changkyun held out his pinky to you, presumably for you to lock your own with. You rolled your eyes. 

“Try anything weird and I’ll punch you. Again,” You said. Students were starting to trickle in, and the last thing you needed was to cause a scene. People already thought you were weird, you didn’t need to give them any reason to think worse. 

Changkyuns eyes flicked down to the wrist brace you had on, then back up. “Trust me, I believe that.” 

You hated to admit it, even to yourself, but Changkyun was a great lab partner. He was careful with the measurements, and didn’t goof off like some students did. You had never struggled on your own, but with Changkyun you ended up finishing the lab before everyone else in the room. As nice as that was, the downside meant leaving with him. 

“So I’ll see you Thursday?” He asked, giving you a hesitant smile. “Same time, same place?” 

The hall was empty, a dull hum of chatter coming from the surrounding classrooms. 

“You sure are good at chemistry for someone who was in Professor Fell’s class,” You commented dryly. Everyone knew Fell was a terrible teacher. The only thing he loved more than calling students stupid was failing them. 

“What?” Changkyun tilted his head to the side. “Thank you, I think?”

“It’s not a complement,” You snapped. “So do you make meth or what?” 

“What?” Changkyun said again.

“There’s no way you learned the formulas from Fells class. And you don’t remember it from high school, don’t even try claiming that. So why are you good at it?” 

“So I can’t just be a smart person who enjoys chemistry? You just immediately assume it’s some Breaking Bad shit?” Changkyun looked taken aback. “I’ve taken the class before, okay? Not at this school. I had a good teacher, but shit happened and I stopped going to class. Missed the final. So now I have to retake it. Happy?”

You weren’t happy. Either he was extremely good at lying, or you’d just made a quite ridiculous accusation.  

“Stay away from me,” You said again. 

You weren’t surprised that Yoongi was nowhere to be found in the library later that afternoon. The new part-timer sat at Yoongi’s desk, diligently organizing the papers and books strewn across it. You noticed Changkyun sitting in a corner highlighting what looked like every sentence in a textbook.  

“How’s it going, Wonho?” You sighed as you sat down next to him. His name wasn’t actually Wonho, you had learned several weeks earlier, but it was what he preferred to be called. 

“Peachy,” He muttered dryly. “This is the fourth time this week that I’ve been called in.”

You wondered if it was Yoongi calling him personally. Someone must be communicating with the school to tell them he wouldn’t be there. It seemed like if he could find time to make sure his shift was covered, he would be able to return a call from you.

Then again, he had no idea why you were calling him. You hadn’t left a message explaining anything, not wanting to make him worry. You were more than capable of dealing with Changkyun on your own. It just felt like it was something Yoongi would want to be in the know about. 

"Take your lunch break, Wonho," You gave him a small smile. “I’ll be fine here.”

Wonho returned your smile, but much more cheerfully. “You don’t have to tell me twice.” 

As if on cue, your phone rang the moment Wonho was gone. 

“Yoongi?” You didn’t even bother to look closely at the name, positive that it had to be Yoongi. 

“Er, no,” Jungkook’s voice was a disappointment, to say the least. “But Yoongi said to tell you he says hi, if that helps.” 

“Not really,” You muttered. “Jungkook, what the hell is going on?”

“It’s...Complicated. I mean, we’re still trying to figure it all out…”

You waited for him to finish, but apparently that was all he was willing to say. 

“How’s Jimin?” You asked after a pause. 

“Angry. Look, Y/n, I’m outside the library if you want to talk in person.”

“What--of course I would rather talk face to face, But I’m not going out there, it’s freezing!” You snapped. “What are you doing out there?”

Jungkook cleared his throat. “It’s a nice day.”

“It’s cold, Jungkook,” You deadpanned. “Why would we stand in the cold when you could literally just come in?”

There was a huff of air on the other end before Jungkook hung up. A few moments later, he stepped out of the elevator. 

“Libraries make me uncomfortable,” He muttered as he walked behind the desk to sit next to you. “They remind me of police stations.” 

You rolled your eyes. “That is not a connection anyone else would see, you know.” 

“Hm,” He sat back in the chair Wonho was just in, hands deep in his jacket pockets. “Y/n. They want territory in return for Namjoon.” 

“Seems pretty straight forward,” You replied. 

“You don’t get it,” Jungkook shook his head. “This ends bad, no matter what. If we agree to their terms, we’re weakened and they’ll just keep trying to push us out. And if we don’t agree, they kill Namjoon, which would start a war.”

“So take Namjoon back by force,” You felt like it was the obvious option. 

Jungkook shook his head, picking up a pencil and tapping it rhythmically on the desk. “That would still start a war.” 

You frowned. “Do you think you’d lose?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jungkook tilted his head to the side. “Regardless of who comes out on top, there’ll be casualties on both sides.” He sat up and leaned towards you suddenly. “Y/n. There’s no reason for you to be one of those casualties.”

“Oh, don’t start that shit again! For fucks sake,” You said, much louder than you intended. Several people looked up from the surrounding tables, including one extremely familiar face that you had forgotten was there. 

Changkyun put down the book he was highlighting and walked over to the desk, looking between the two of you.

“Is he bothering you?” He asked, a sincerity in his voice you weren’t expecting. 

“Suddenly you care if I’m bothered?” You replied dryly. 

“Who’s he?” Jungkook looked mildly concerned. 

“A friend,” Changkyun said curtly, before you had a chance to say anything. “And you are…?”

“We’re not friends,” You corrected Changkyun. You considered explaining him to Jungkook, but your problems felt a little inconsequential after talking to him. “He’s just some guy from my chemistry class.”

“Okay,” Jungkook shrugged, clearly disinterested. When Changkyun didn’t move, Jungkook waved a hand dismissively. “She said I’m not bothering her. Go.”

“She actually didn’t, though,” Changkyun kept his tone level, turning his gaze to you expectantly. 

There was something about the whole exchange that felt off, but you couldn’t quite place what. “Yeah. I mean, no, he’s not bothering me.”

Changkyun shrugged, all tension leaving his shoulders immediately. “Okay, then,” He smiled. “You know where to find me if you change your mind.”

You watched him walk back to a table and resume highlighting before turning back to Jungkook, who was smirking.

“What?” 

Jungkook nodded towards Changkyun. “Yoongi’s gone all of four days and you’ve already got a new suiter.”

You wrinkled your nose in disgust. “Changkyun isn’t a suitor. He’s...I don’t know what he is. But it’s not like that.”

“Mhm,” Jungkook nodded sarcastically. “Right. Got it.”

You didn’t go back to your dorm that night. Instead, you dug out your spare key to Yoongi’s apartment and let yourself in. Yoongi had told you countless times that you were welcome at any time of the day, whether he was there or not. But it always felt a little odd to be there when he wasn’t. 

Jungkook had offered nothing useful. Apparently someone in Bangtan had noticed that you weren’t answering your phone (but didn’t bother to listen to their voicemails) and he had only stopped by to make sure you were okay.  

Yoongi’s kitchen table was covered in papers, most of which didn’t make any sense to you. There were addresses, pictures of office buildings, parking lots and one of a field. You picked up what appeared to be a spreadsheet of profit margins, but you were sure the labels were in some kind of code. You’d learned a few months before that, officially, the Kim family made its money in the textile industry. But Hoseok was the one who dealt with that small aspect of their “business,” and no one else particularly cared.

You set the paper down. There wasn’t much information you could gather from any of this. 

The doorknob rattled and you turned in time to see Yoongi stagger in. He looked exhausted. His hair was disheveled, and his eyes had dark circles under them. 

“Hey,” You gave the ghost of a smile.

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” Yoongi returned your smile tiredly. 

You made your way over to him, reaching up to brush the small bruise you noticed on the side of his cheek. “Have you slept at all?”

He shrugged. “Napped. I think.”

“Do you want to talk about what’s going on?” You asked hopefully. You knew he was tired, but you didn’t like being completely in the dark like this.

“Not in the least bit,” He wrapped his arms around your waist, burying his nose in the crook of your neck. “What happened to your hand?”

Of course he would notice your hand was bruised, even as drained as he was. Despite the situation, a smile pulled at your lips. “A guy was bothering me. So I punched him.” 

Yoongi chuckled. “Hell yeah, you did!” His voice was slightly muffled from talking into your cardigan. He straightened so he could look at you properly. “Are you okay?” He asked gently. “I can punch him too, if you want.”

You shook your head. “Thanks, but I think he got the idea. You have more important things to worry about right now, anyway.” You meant it to sound reassuring, but Yoongi’s face fell. “No, I just meant--I can handle myself.”

“I know you can,” He gave a half-hearted nod. “But I’ll try to be around more.”

--

A/N Has it been more than a year? I think so. Have I decided that Changkyun should totally be a love interest for Y/n? Absolutely. Hopefully some of you are as multi-fandom as I am lol :D

[vince-thrilligan]

'Breaking Bad' Returns: Aaron Paul and Vince Gilligan Take a TV Classic for a Spin in 'El Camino'

The Hollywood Reporter  |    by Rebecca Keegan   |   September 18, 2019

In their first interview about the new movie, star and creator reveal why they risked messing with their defining show ("Is there another story to tell?") and how they shot the hot Netflix project in near-total secrecy.

One day late in 2018, the phone of an Albuquerque, New Mexico, man named Frank Sandoval started ringing off the hook. Sandoval runs a local outfit that operates Breaking Bad-themed tours in an RV identical to the battered Fleetwood Bounder that served as a mobile meth lab for Bryan Cranston's Walter White and Aaron Paul's Jesse Pinkman on the Emmy-winning AMC show. Five years after Breaking Bad went off the air, the distinctive vehicle had — suddenly and mysteriously — reappeared in town outside a diner on a main road. "People were calling us and saying, 'Is that your RV up there?' " Sandoval says. "We'd heard rumors for years that they were shooting. But nobody we talked to ever knew anything." Sandoval asked around about the mystery RV and eventually came across a printed flyer explaining that a New Mexico tourism commercial was shooting in town. He figured that explained it.

Not quite.

In fact, Jesse and Walter's old RV was in Albuquerque that day, as were Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan and his cast and crew, engaged in a secret project. They were shooting El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, which will premiere Oct. 11 on Netflix and in theaters in 68 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Albuquerque, before it airs on AMC early next year. Netflix only just announced the project in August, after Gilligan had wrapped postproduction. That's because despite the Virginia-born writer's gentle Southern manner and almost pathological humility, Gilligan, 52, is a showman at heart, and he wants to lift the curtain at the last possible second. "I don't want to open my Christmas presents a week and a half before Christmas," Gilligan says, explaining his insistence on a covert production. Gilligan's producers say they had nothing to do with the tourism flyer, but they did use other means to keep the project hush-hush, including waiting until the last possible minute to share the script with crew, obscuring locations with trucks and screens and relying on a private jet to shuttle a key castmember in and out of Albuquerque without notice.

The two-hour feature film, which Gilligan wrote and directed over the past 18 months, is premiering six years after Breaking Bad ended with Walter dying and Jesse driving an El Camino to freedom from his imprisonment on an Aryan Brotherhood compound. (A trailer set to debut during the Emmys on Sept. 22 will offer a detailed peek.) The Netflix partnership fulfills a long-standing wish of Gilligan's for a Breaking Bad theatrical experience and follows the formative role the streaming company had in the series' success — Breaking Bad was the first cable show to benefit from a so-called Netflix boost.

El Camino centers on what happens to Jesse after he drives out of that compound covered in physical and psychological scars, and it features more than 10 familiar characters from the show. In deference to Gilligan's spoiler aversion, THR will name only two: fan favorites Skinny Pete (Charles Baker) and Badger (Matt L. Jones), the Beavis and Butt-Head of the greater Albuquerque meth community.

Returning to the world of Breaking Bad comes with some risk for Gilligan — during the course of its five-year run, the crime drama about a mild-mannered chemistry teacher who transforms into a ruthless drug kingpin came to exemplify a new, golden era of TV, engrossing critics and audiences with its dense, character-driven storytelling, winning 16 Emmys and delivering one of the most satisfying mic drops in the history of television with a finale that more than 10 million people watched on AMC. In the rarefied club of early Peak TV auteurs, including Mad Men's Matthew Weiner, The Wire's David Simon and The Sopranos' David Chase, Gilligan is the first to take a leap and make a film from his signature show (Chase's Sopranos movie is due next year).

There also is the danger of dwelling indefinitely in the world — however rich — that Gilligan created. Breaking Bad diehards already have the show's spinoff prequel, Better Call Saul, which just finished shooting its fifth season. "I'm hoping when the movie comes out, people won't say, 'Oh, man, this guy should've left well enough alone,' " Gilligan says in his first interview about the film. "Why did George Foreman keep coming out of retirement, you know?"

***

Gilligan works in a nondescript glass office building in Burbank with a view of a dry cleaner and a parking lot. This is the "fancy" office he reluctantly moved to before his team started making Better Call Saul — superstitious, he didn't want to vacate the derelict space deeper in the San Fernando Valley where they had made Breaking Bad, a building they shared with a private investigator, a music charity and an hoc threading business operating out of the women's bathroom. Also, for reasons no one can recall, there was a guy in the building who always wore a kilt. Gilligan, who lives on L.A.'s Westside with his longtime girlfriend, Holly Rice, chose the location because it was convenient not for him, but for his show's editor. When it came time to select offices there, he picked for himself the room that didn't have a window and housed a giant humming server.

His newer, comparatively luxurious space is decorated with Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul memorabilia — the special effects bust of Gus Fring's (Giancarlo Esposito) exploded head is next to Gilligan's desk, and bottles of Blue Ice Heisenberg vodka sit on a bookshelf. There also are model helicopters, tokens of Gilligan's other passion, aviation. At 50, he fulfilled a decades-long goal of obtaining his helicopter pilot's license. One of the locations in El Camino is a spot he used to glimpse while choppering with his flight instructor, 500 feet above the ground, en route from L.A. to Albuquerque. "When I'm flying a helicopter, I'm as happy as I ever get, which is not particularly happy, but still, as happy as I ever am," Gilligan says. "I'll never master it. It's one of those … Is that a Zen thing? When you have some sort of avocation that you're continually a beginner at. You're never going to perfect it. But in a weird way, that feels good, because you're never going to get tired of it either."

Gilligan first started ruminating on the story that would ultimately become El Camino before he finished making Breaking Bad. "I didn't really tell anybody about it, because I wasn't sure I would ever do anything with it," he says. "But I started thinking to myself, 'What happened to Jesse?' You see him driving away. And to my mind, he went off to a happy ending. But as the years progressed, I thought, 'What did that ending — let's just call it an ending, neither happy, nor sad — what did it look like?' " It was while planning events in 2018 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the premiere of Breaking Bad that Gilligan first told his inner circle he had an idea to revisit Jesse, perhaps a five-minute short film, he mused to his longtime producer, Melissa Bernstein. "He just started letting his mind run over that," Bernstein says. "And he started to realize, 'I have a lot to say about this.' "

Gilligan, who wrote the feature films Wilder Napalm (1993) and Home Fries (1998) as well as some unproduced feature scripts, found his comfort zone as a writer in the collaborative, deadline-oriented environment of TV while on the staff of The X-Files. "I was the laziest writer in creation," Gilligan says. "I'd piddle around. It took me two years to write a first draft of a movie script in the early '90s, just because I had no one holding a gun to my head. I just didn't have that work ethic. Working in TV changed everything for me." But on El Camino, Gilligan returned to the solitary lifestyle of a feature writer. "I had been working with excellent writers now for well over a decade, and I'd forgotten what it was like to write something by myself, and it was daunting," Gilligan says. "Suddenly I'm trying to write this and thinking, 'God, I really could use a writers room about now.' " Gilligan outlined the story using note cards, his usual method, and then began on his first draft at his time-share in the Bahamas.

As a business philosophy, Gilligan is a believer in the idea that you "dance with the girl that brung ya," and at a time when many other top showrunners are managing multiple productions and seeking nine-figure deals at streamers, he has remained at Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul studio Sony Pictures Television, re-upping with the company last year in a three-year, mid-eight-figure overall pact that includes his work on El Camino. When Gilligan told executives there about his idea for a Breaking Bad movie, "We all just fell silent in the room," says SPT co-president Chris Parnell. "It was one of the moments when you think to yourself, 'Did I just hear that? Is that something he genuinely wants to do?' " Together with his agent, ICM Partners' Chris Silbermann, Gilligan quietly walked the script into just a handful of offices in Hollywood before deciding to partner with Netflix, as well as AMC. Both companies represented a crucial part in Breaking Bad's history, AMC for picking up the show after FX passed on it and Netflix for building it into the binge TV era's first true streaming/cable hybrid hit.

In 2010, Breaking Bad was at a crossroads: With the show averaging about 1.5 million viewers a season despite being a critics' darling, AMC informed Sony and Gilligan that the series could end with season three. When Sony began shopping Breaking Bad to competitors — quickly finding a taker for two more seasons at FX — AMC reversed course. Netflix, meanwhile, was aggressively licensing shows for its nascent streaming service, and content chief Ted Sarandos made a syndication deal with Sony for Breaking Bad. Originally, the arrangement was for the series to start streaming on Netflix after its fourth season finished on AMC, but, with the show's future uncertain, Sony accelerated the plan, and new fans began discovering and bingeing Breaking Bad on Netflix in time to catch some of the fourth season and all of the fifth and final season on AMC. When season five premiered in 2013, the audience had more than doubled from its previous outing. "We felt that it was a virtuous cycle, where we were introducing the show to new fans, who were then going and experiencing new episodes on AMC, and then when we would launch a new season, we would again see another wave of new folks coming," says Netflix vp original content Cindy Holland. Since news of the movie broke in August, Holland says, viewership of Breaking Bad on Netflix is up, some from rewatchers and some from newcomers to the series. "We were a natural home for the movie," Holland says. "It wasn't a really long conversation. It was a simple, 'Yes, please.' "

Netflix also brought the theatrical component, which was crucial to Gilligan. "Every time we'd put out a new season of Breaking Bad, we would have a premiere in a big movie theater," Gilligan says. "We would watch this quote-unquote television show. I mean, I guess quotations aren't needed. It is absolutely a television show. But we would have this wonderful, very limited, one-time opportunity to watch our television show on a big screen with giant stereo speakers thumping, the image filling 40 feet across. I always thought, 'This thing, it looks like a movie. It doesn't look like a show.' I really want to be able to share that with fans." As with its other theatrical releases, Netflix will exhibit the film in independent theaters for a very limited period.

The secrecy on the project extends to the budget, which all interviewed decline to disclose beyond saying that it is significantly higher than what Gilligan had ever worked with on the show, including the $6 million for an episode in the final season. Gilligan's producers Bernstein and Diane Mercer went to great lengths to keep the film under wraps during production, shrouding locations from onlookers' view, covertly ferrying key castmembers to the set and warning crewmembers to be discreet around town. "Don't be sitting on a barstool somewhere and talk about the project you're working on, because God only knows who's sitting next to you" was the mantra, Gilligan says.

The movie, which plays like a coda to the series, is thick with details that will tickle the superfan base, which is its true intended audience, Gilligan says. One that only the most devoted may pick up on is a key address at the corner of Holly and Arroz streets — a wink to Gilligan's girlfriend (arroz is rice in Spanish). "If, after 12 years, you haven't watched Breaking Bad, you're probably not going to start now," Gilligan says. "If you do, I hope that this movie would still be engaging on some level, but there's no doubt in my mind that you won't get as much enjoyment out of it. We don't slow down to explain things to a non-Breaking Bad audience. I thought early on in the writing of the script, 'Maybe there's a way to have my cake and eat it too. Maybe there's a way to explain things to the audience.' If there was a way to do that, it eluded me."

Breaking Bad was particularly cinematic television, with its wide-angle shots of the stark New Mexico landscape, expressive lighting and deliberate pacing. At one point during the series, Gilligan and his cinematographer, Michael Slovis, made an unsuccessful pitch to Sony and AMC to shoot Breaking Bad in the CinemaScope format that Sergio Leone had used to shoot Clint Eastwood's Dollars Trilogy. On El Camino, Gilligan got his wish — Better Caul Saul DP Marshall Adams shot the movie on the ARRI Alexa 65 camera used for The Revenant and in a 2.39 wide-screen format that seems designed to showcase a gunslinger's squint across the desert.

Gilligan is perfectionistic in a way that television schedules rarely have time to indulge. El Camino proceeded at an even more leisurely pace than his shows. Instead of shooting six to eight pages a day as Gilligan had on Breaking Bad, he shot one and a half to three. Most of the 50-day shoot happened in the same Albuquerque locations where Breaking Bad is set, but the larger budget meant he was able to take advantage of some picturesque out-of-state locations, too. "This is my first movie as a director, and I have to say, it made me want some more of that," says Gilligan, who has directed five episodes each of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul and two of The X-Files. "You truly have time to get things right. It feels very decadent."

***

Returning to the character of Jesse Pinkman for El Camino was an unexpected career twist. While making Breaking Bad, Paul had grown as an actor under Cranston's tutelage and shed some fatiguing habits. "The first couple years were really torturous for me," Paul says. Often, after shooting had wrapped for the day, "I found myself in dark alleys in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at 3 in the morning, just to try to get more information, which was not a good thing. I just didn't want to mess it up, and so I stayed in that guy's skin, but I learned from Bryan it's OK to shake it off and wash up at the end of the night and just have time for yourself." When the finale aired, Paul says, "I really loved Jesse. I knew him better than anyone, but it was a big weight off of my shoulders to hang up the cleats and walk away. I thought it was goodbye, and I was OK with that." 
In early 2018, while Paul was in New York shooting The Path, Gilligan called him and shared that he had written a movie about Jesse. "I'm like everybody else on the planet — I think Vince and the rest of the writers really nailed the landing with the ending of Breaking Bad, and why mess with that?" Paul recalls thinking. "But it's Vince we're talking about. I would follow Vince into a fire. That's how much I trust the man. I would do anything that he asked me to." (Gilligan inspires a fierce loyalty, and most of his colleagues have been with him for years, starting with Mark Johnson, who discovered Gilligan while judging a screenwriting competition in 1988 and has served as a producer on Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul and El Camino.) Within months of answering Gilligan's call, Paul was back in Albuquerque's dark alleys, bearded and in scar makeup. "It was so easy for me to just jump into where Jesse's at mentally, emotionally, because I lived and breathed everything he went through and then some, and so, honestly, it felt like a part of me had gone through that as well," Paul says. "All I had to do was just memorize these words and then play them out when they yelled 'action.' "

***

Gilligan, too, grew up, in a sense, on Breaking Bad, and he has a wistfulness about how it has shaped his life over the last 11 years. "I'm about 25 to 30 years older than I was when I started," he says. "Yeah, I'm just worn out. I mean, part of what excited me about doing this was it was a movie, a closed-ended story of about two hours. If I was starting now, I'm not sure I'd have the intestinal fortitude to fight all the fights and expend all the energy."

Gilligan is not ready for retirement — not at all — but when he looks ahead to life after Better Call Saul, he sees something outside the universe of characters that have become his trademark creation. He plans to make another show after Better Call Saul ends, but what exactly that will be and where it will air, he doesn't know. "Personally, I'd love to figure out something different, which at this point would be, God, not another antihero," Gilligan says. "Is there something else I can do? Is there another story I can tell? But I've got to tell you, it's harder to write a really engaging good guy than it is a really engaging bad guy."

[otomelavenderhaze]

it does make sense what amber said, y'know? i don't know if any of you have watched breaking bad, but in this series, a chemistry teacher with a lot of debts and a really boring life starts to make meth to sell. initially he does it to help his family, since it's easy money, but after some time he starts to enjoy it. he says he feels alive, because he's doing something he's good at. i think nathaniel's situation is similar to this (1/?)

nathaniel had to live under his father rules for a long time. he could never had the taste of “freedom” or do something he actually enjoyed, because he had to be perfect. i’m not saying he dreamed to be a drugdealer or anything like this, but i think he enjoys the “thrill” of it. he likes to feel powerful or even “badass”. (2/2)

I didn’t said that what she said didn’t made sense at all. 

I did said that the way she pass it to us is kinda dumb. What is kinda truth. She goes around saying that after what he went through and because he likes detective novels are the “evidences” that we need to think that Nathaniel is lying to us, when the game makes the effort for us pity him ALL THE TIME. 

Now, Nathaniel knows that he screw up, but according to Amber he is bullshitting us, but since we pity him, we want to belive that he is not. 

/\ What is kinda boring in my opinion. I like hella more the ideia that Nathaniel can be dangerous and a little bit morally grey. My biggest complain is: we didn’t saw early everything that Amber told us, Candy didn’t noticed that Nathaniel is addicted to his financial independence and control over his life. Istead the game pushed us to only pity him. 

With the game narrative we pretty much see that Nathaniel have no fucking control about his life so far, that’s why don’t work they simply throw that information in our face like that. 

I think that’s why so many people hates the direction his route is taking, because as we expected, it seems to be missing some essential things to make this kind of plot work.

But again, this is my opinion. I founded the information interesting, but simply poorly executed/put together/written. 

[multifandomaddictedfangirl]

Misconceptions about Breaking bad ~ my theory (Spoilers!)

So I’ve just finished watching Breaking Bad. All seasons. I really loved the show. It was well written, well directed, well thought in every details, very well played with such talented actors. It is a masterpiece. Clearly, it was a show that had been thought of and worked on for a while to be perfect (like no plot holes, no OOC actions, no wasted moments, no pointless moves, no useless lines, etc.). Besides, this show had everything: badass action, fighting scenes, tension, drama (big time), humor sometimes (not often) and emotions (a lot).

However, I think there is a HUGE misunderstanding to what this show is about and an ENORMOUS misconception of why it’s so good and really likeable.

A lot of people I have met IRL, or read online, really loved this show as well. That’s not a surprise. As I’ve said, this show was really good for a lot of reasons and I will never deny that.

But as I was reading them/talking to them IRL, I’ve realised something. They loved Breaking Bad because they loved the story and the character of Walter White. They loved the story of an american middle aged white man, with a normal life, a traditional family and a boring job, becoming this super extra badass who ends up building and controlling a meth empire. Usually, they particularly loved season 3-4 when Walt is supposedly at its greatest moments. They loved Walter White and what he has become: a badass, a smart ass meth dealer, a dominating boss, a good provider for his family... a real man. They loved him as a hero. They loved him as a protagonist who should succeed and get what he wants in the end. They loved him as a character that they were rooting for. They also loved the dream of a normal guy starting off nothing and ending up being the big boss in the game. They loved the idea of having this exciting/dangerous/ illegal/ outlawed/badass “dream life”. Like in an action movie. They loved the fantasy that Breaking Bad exposes.

So here’s the thing... Those people don’t like Breaking Bad. Because that’s not the show. That’s not its point. That’s not its essence. That’s not what it’s trying to show us. That’s not what it’s about. At all.

Obviously, there are multiple interpretations and levels of lecture in a piece of art. And I don’t think some are overall better than others. I think it’s pretty condescending and arrogant to believe there is a “good way” of consuming medias/arts, and a “bad way”. There are just different ways. And that’s great.

However, if you pay attention to the show, for like 10 minutes, it’s pretty clear what it is about.

Breaking Bad is a criticism of Walter White and of this fantasy of a badass action-movie lifestyle. The whole point of the show is basically to say: “Look at that kind of lifestyle society makes you fantasise about, and look how you really don’t want to have it cause it actually sucks. Look at how you DON’T and SHOULDN’T want to become Walter White.”

Walter White isn’t portrayed as a glorious badass mastermind hero by the show. He shouldn’t be read like that. Of course, he is the main protagonist and so, the audience is meant to follow his story. But Walt is first portrayed as a bad guy. Not only like a villain. But as a bad person. Someone you should despise for his personality. Someone who should disgust you. Someone you should hate for who he truly is. Someone you shouldn’t be rooting for. Someone you should quite quickly want dead.

When the show begins, yes, he is portrayed as a normal family man, working a basic job, providing for his family which he seems to care about. But the show already makes it clear that he is a very proud man, who thinks he deserves better than his current life, who thinks he can do better and have better just because. Just cause he is Walter White, a chemistry genius. His world, what he has, doesn’t seem to be enough for him.

(Btw some of my friends argued that Walter White wasn’t such a bad person in the beginning of the show, and that “the meth dealing turned him into an asshole”. While I would agree with that, I also wanna point out that in the beginning of the show, Walt isn’t the greatest person neither... His life is built around a very sexist scheme. He always expects Skyler to do breakfast for him and basically all the housework, because she is his housewife and that’s the way things are supposed to be. We never see him being grateful for what she does. If he’s the only one working, “providing for his family”, it’s more likely because he didn’t want Skyler to. Skyler is a competent woman, she could have found a job with a better income than high school teacher. But I don’t think Walt, fulled with pride, would have accepted to be taken care of by his wife. He wanted to be the alfa male since day one. Because he more likely already had internalised pride, sexism and toxic masculinity and fake virility. We never see him share his true feelings with Skyler. He doesn’t want to look vulnerable. Never. He’s never real with anybody. He refuses to admit that he feels bad about his life and prefers to hide behind a mask, which he will continue to do throughout the show. Because expressing your true feelings to someone who cares about you is not an alfa male move, so Walt rejects this idea. So no, I don’t believe Walter White was such a great person in the beginning. He already was an asshole. He just became waaaaaaaay worse.)

Anyway, then he got diagnosed with cancer. And the money issue appears. If the family pays for Walter’s chemotherapy, they will take a huge risk of bankrupt. They need more money. The family needs more money. But let’s note that Walt’s friends, Eliot and Gretchen, DO propose to pay for his therapy. But Walter refuses, again because of his pride. All the events that follow, all the murders, all the meth dealing, all the horrors, EVERYTHING could have been avoided if Walter White hadn’t decided to be an arrogant jerk and say “suck it” to genuine help.

The money and the (supposedly) rightful idea providing for his family will be Walter’s justifications for ALL his actions during the ENTIRE show (even when his cancer is cured and the family doesn’t necessarily needs this huge amount of money anymore).

The truth is Walt never just wanted the money for chemotherapy or to help his family. He wanted the money because money equals power and influence. And Walt dreamed of power and control over the others. He wanted to be the only one capable of providing, the one everyone else would praise, admire and thank for the rest of his life. He wanted to be a god. Before even cooking his first batch, he already was a narcissist self-centered and arrogant prick, only thinking about his own good.

When he starts to cook meth, it just becomes even worse. The show gets darker, bloodier, more violent. Everything breaks bad, as thev title of the show clearly explicits. Walt finds a new way to express his desire of control, his dream of being finally respected/feared, and the silent violence which he was hidding inside of him.

(I think Walt somehow wants to turn the symbolic violence he was victim of (not being manly enough, especially compared to his brother-in-law, Hank who kinda bullies him in the beginning of the show) into a physical violence he is now in control of).

He then becomes a monster, who is capable of the most cruel, creepy, insane actions to get what he wants. He completely looses sense of reality. If we sum up what he did: he started cooking meth, he missed his daughter’s birth because of the meth dealing, he lied to everybody who cared about him, he tricked his DEA agent brother-in-law Hank, he mentally abused and manipulated Jesse to make him his puppet, he provoked Hank’s accident paralysing him for a while, he turned Junior against Skyler, he abused Skyler and made her part of his business letting her no other choice, he killed Gus’s men, he disolved murdered bodies in acid, he let Jane died while he could have saved her, he made Jesse kill Gale, he blew up a old people’s house killing Gus and hurting multiple innocents, he told nazis where Andrea lived and therefore caused her death, he ordered killings in prison, he blackmailed Hank with a fake confession video, he kidnapped Holly, he caused Hank and Gomez’s deaths, he killed Krazy8, he killed Mike, and he poisoned a child.

And the show makes it pretty clear that it’s not sane, that NONE of this is cool/badass, that it’s just miserable actions provoked by a desperate man, that it will just bring him sadness, loneliness, loss, misery and disfurtune, that Walt slowly but surely goes down this path of destruction and cruelty and that he will never come back. That what he once had (a family who loved and respected him, friends who cared about him, friendly neighbors, a stable job which had always been enough to provide for the family, a beautiful house, a great life, really) will be gone forever. And he will never get all of that back. Even if Walt just realises that in the final episodes.

His problematic lack of trust (even towards Jesse who never betrayed him!), his egocentric paranoia (the fact that he always thinks he is the center of some sort of conspiracy in the meth empire, despite the fact that it is a huge business and he is just not alone in this), his insane quest of power (the fact that he is never happy with what he has and always wants to extend his market/to extend his influence) and his huge PRIDE will always and constantly lead him to making huge mistakes and screwing up everything, making everything way worse. Walt is often the cause of his own failures.

But rather than learning from his mistakes, grow up and adapt, those mistakes just reinforce his beliefs, his fears, his desires, and justifies somehow even more his further actions. Walt is stuck in a vicious circle that, you know already from season 1-2, will lead him towards his end.

Everytime Walt tries something, he fails. He is not a badass mastermind meth dealer. He takes a lot of stupid decisions because he is too impulsive and doesn’t know how things really work in the real life. There is plenty of things he doesn’t know, even if he never admits it. He always have more competent person around him to do the job. Sure he cooks meth better than anybody else (except maybe Jesse in season 5), but meth dealing isn’t just cooking. Without Jesse, without Gus, without Mike, Walt would have never been Heisenberg.

Relying on other isn’t a bad thing (on the contrary), but that’s not what Walt does. Walt USES people. He manipulates them, he mentally ABUSES them, destroys their self esteem, threatens them, makes them believe they have no other choices but to order him. He did that with Jesse (big time), and also with Skyler for instance. The truth is Walt sucks and he needs others but he always denies it because he doesn’t want to admit that he is vulnerable and lost and that he actually is not “the big boss in the game”.

And whenever he makes a decision by himself (usually to cross someone), he FAILS. Like dramatically. He always puts himself in a position that is worse, usually more dangerous, just because he couldn’t shut up and keep his pride. Yes, sometimes, he also succeeds but it’s then quickly shown that what he thought was a success will turn up against him.

Even when Walt does look badass, it’s during short moments taken apart from big story. Yes, if you take some scenes out of context, Walt looks cool. But if you just take some time to analyse the context, than the scenes loose all its power and Walt appears the way he is inside: powerless, weak, insecure, pathetic.

For instance, when Walter says to his wife “I’m the danger”, it’s not meant to be seen as a badass line (and it has, by many people). It’s pathetic because he has, at that point in the show, lost control in his professional life. So he’s trying to regain control and influence in his private life by terryfing someone who looks weaker than him. He cannot hurt or scare his actual enemies in the meth empire because they are more powerful than him. He is at this point lost, confused and vulnerable. He needs to regain his manhood, his position of power, his role of alfa male. So to do so, he decides to terrify his wife, who is just a normal person and doesn’t know the meth world (and so, who has to take anything Walt says for granted). He’s like a bully, in school, attacking the weakest because they are in quest of manhood and influence. And we know bullies are actually the most insecure kids.

Besides, when Walt fails, he doesn’t even admit he screwed up, says sorry and learns from his mistakes. He denies he made a mistake and takes the blame on others. That’s, again, profoundly PATHETIC. He lies to everyone. While he claims that he doesn’t want anybody’s pity, he keeps lying to make it look like he was just the victim of unfortunate events against him. That’s why Walt isn’t even a good likeable villain. He denies what he truly wants (money, power, control, sense of manhood...), he hides behind a fake justification, and he doesn’t realise or admit that his means are deeply cruel (murder, mental abuse, meth dealing, child poisoning, lying, bloodbath assassinations...). Even if he has convinced himself he’s doing all of this for a good reason (provide for his family), it’s like he is not aware of the monstrosity of his actions. He never admits he has become a merciless monster. Not to his family, not to his wife, not to his partners in crime. Most villains would say: “I believe what I do is fair and justified, but to do so, I have to become a monster and do unspeakable things and that’s what I’m gonna do”. But Walt doesn’t.

(Walt would probably say something like “I’m a good person, I want to help my family which totally explains all my actions which weren’t even THAT bad if you look at it a certain way and there was no other choice anyway, I’m just a victim, but I’m still powerful, but I had to, but I’m in control.” And honestly? UGH.)

Walt is a looser, who tries to hide the fact that he sucks. He is not a badass, or a mastermind. He’s mostly scared, pathetic and lost. Breaking Bad always show us that. Breaking Bad is about the fail and the path towards the end of Walter White. It’s about Walt becoming worse and worse, but not by doing things more and more illegal/horrible. He’s becoming worse and worse as a person. More pathetic as the show evolves. More miserable. More lost. More desperate. And he ends up with NOTHING.

Walter White looses everything. His friends are so terrified of him that they don’t want to have any contact with him. His wife completely despise him. His son is ashamed and disgusted of him. His daughter will grow up without a father. His former associates are mostly dead. His partner, Jesse, hates him and runs away from him. Walt dies alone, abandonned by everyone, knowing nobody will miss him and that he has failed to do what he first wanted (take care of his family), that the person he once was, who had a great life actually, is gone.

The show makes it very clear that following Walter’s path is not something cool. It’s not something you should want or dream about. Because in your fantasy, the meth business is badass and cool and fun. But in reality, it’s difficult, horrifying, dangerous and life-ruining. The point of the show is to stay: Walt got stuck in this because he was, and always had been, a proud, narcissist and pathetic person and he has LOST everything when he tried to be the badass he never was.

This fictional lifestyle, based on pride, toxic masculinity and badass action fantasy, that is nourished by a lot of fictions and medias that we consume, is BAD (hence the title). The show criticises it over and over again.

And in my opinion, that’s why it’s so good. The show doesn’t glorify what society already praises to be the dream. It questions it, it shows us its true nature, and criticises it. At the end, Breaking Bad isn’t just a badass exciting action-movie turned into a serie (it would have been quite boring if it was). It’s more than that. It tells a story about us as human, as people, and it deconstructs a fantasy we all have had at some point. And it does it perfectly. So I really loved this show, but it saddened me to see so many people having this misunderstanding about what the show was trying to say.

[lookwhatilost]

saulposting time!

i really, really loved “nippy” tbh. i’m not sure why people on reddit are so angry about it – i guess since point & shoot and fun & games felt a bit more like brba episodes, and the latter ended with the saul goodman jump cut, people were expecting a concurrent timeline situation. i’m happy they didn’t end up going in that direction with it. gus and mike’s endings were perfect, and i feel like the gaps between kim leaving and becoming saul don’t need to waste time with expositional details.

like, we know that jimmy is like this now because no one is around to discourage this sort of behavior in him anymore. we know that he bought caldera’s black book off him. it’s probably fair to assume that francesca’s decor was swapped out in favor of the kitschy constitution decor because it’d matter less if his customer base wrecked it. after a while, it just becomes splitting hairs.

i think this is one of those episodes that people’s opinions will improve towards when it hits streaming honestly

going off the information available – the episode title being announced as “breaking bad” and the promo pictures, it’s likely that this is referencing gene and jeff, or maybe jeff and his buddy.

here’s my ending prediction: jeff and buddy try to pull off a similar heist without gene’s guidance and get caught. they make a deal for a reduced sentence while in custody on the condition that they rat gene out. he’s eventually arrested based on this. kim, having moved back to nebraska, hears of this, studies to pass the nebraska bar (assuming she hasn’t returned to law already, given how much time has passed), and represents him in court. she ends up getting him a reduced sentence.

it seems like a sensible ending to me, but there’s also a lot that it doesn’t account for. for one, the nebraska football fans narrowed the timeline down to october 2010, so that puts us around a month after walt dies, and a few weeks before the birthday phone call to francesca. gene’s been in hiding for around 7 months at this point, so maybe the call is from him? just to check in with how things are going on her end legally. i don’t know if it makes sense for kim to be calling him. i feel like that would take away from the gravity and seriousness of their breakup if they’re still marginally in contact. maybe it’s huell? kuby?

and then the walt and jesse cameos. i genuinely don’t know how they could be organically integrated into the series unless it’s one of the following:

1) we get an episode dedicated to what kim has been doing these past 6 years. at some point during this, she catches a news program about the heisenberg manhunt and the associated parties, being jesse and saul. i’m presuming she’s mostly moved on with her life at this point. maybe she’s remarried. she turns to her spouse and says something to the effect of “holy shit, that’s my ex husband”

2) we see a flashback scene that’s relevant to what exactly jeff was doing in abq. he crosses paths with walt and jesse at some point.

3) jeff solicits gene’s help for more schemes. gene gives jeff a warning: “remember that chemistry teacher i told you about?” and it’s a condensed retelling of the events of breaking bad from his perspective. think “bad blood” from the x-files, with an emphasis on comedy. come to think of it, gilligan wrote that one. it would also make a lot of sense for the character. saul didn’t exactly think highly of them: “you two suck at peddling meth”

i’d be happiest with option one or option three. either way, jeff is certainly going to be a linchpin for the final act of the show. i’m also fond of the theory that marion knows more than she’s letting on.

i still don’t understand why gilligould and company announced those cameos at all. it could have been a nice surprise, provided it’s executed properly, but now so many of the fans are just getting impatient and they’ll be disappointed if it’s not everything they built it up as in their head. i think it’d really suck if they did an el camino type thing with them.

some other stray thoughts:

- this seems to be a bit of a callback to how we were introduced to jimmy. slipping jimmy moves to abq from chicago and is trying to live a more honest version of his life after getting into legal trouble, gene moves to omaha from abq and is more or less trying to do something similar, albeit with less choice in the matter and higher stakes. he dips his toes back in the water with the kettlemans, he dips his toes back in the water again with jeff. so, will jimmy accept this as one last hurrah and bury it? will he turn himself in?

- there was a s6A promo where we see gene back in abq. so, it begs the question, what exactly is he doing there? is he surrendering or is this business on jeff or marion’s behalf?

- i’m like 90% sure tom schnauz is trolling with the title. remember when everyone thought black & blue was a negro y azul callback, and since it’s the brba episode that preceded better call saul, they were so damn certain walt and jesse would show up in the next episode? pepperidge farm remembers.

- not a fan of the theory on reddit that jeff was a former member of jack’s gang, that he’s aware of walt’s meth money, and enlists gene to help him find it. i don’t want the nazis to be a last minute bigbad AGAIN. it felt slipshod the first time. but it would explain the abq gene promo? ugh fuck.

- i still wish they’d done more with spooge. maybe spooge is part of the bad crowd dafjldjfldjafhk

- i wonder what the deal is with neal honda’s character? maybe we’ll see him in the kim episode? i can’t imagine there isn’t going to be a kim episode.

eh, i suppose this is enough for now. i can’t wait for monday hah 😸

[biofunmy]

A Breaking Bad Movie’ reviews praise, pan the Netflix film

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Aaron Paul says “I thought I was saying goodbye” to his character Jesse Pinkman when “Breaking Bad” ended six years ago. He returns to the role in the Netflix movie “El Camino,” out Friday. (Oct. 9) AP, AP

“El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie” has failed to rev everyone’s engine. 

Netflix’s two-hour film, which picks up in the moments after the 2013 finale of the AMC series starring Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, dropped Friday, and the reviews are in. (The flick is also available for viewing in select theaters.)

Some critics are questioning the necessity of the movie written and directed by Vince Gilligan, who created the original drama about a cancer-stricken chemistry teacher Walter White (Cranston), who becomes a meth manufacturer aided by his partner and former student Jesse Pinkman (Paul).

Before taking in the feature, see what the critics are saying. (The Metacritic aggregation site currently lists a rating of 72 out of 100). 

‘It felt like a ‘Star Wars’ set’: Aaron Paul on making the top-secret ‘Breaking Bad’ movie

‘You ready?’: The latest ‘Breaking Bad’ trailer shows Jesse Pinkman on the run again

“Fans may get a kick out of revisiting old haunts and reconnecting with familiar faces, at least one of whom who made the jump from ‘Breaking Bad’ to the brilliant spinoff, ‘Better Call Saul.’ However, there aren’t enough of those reunions, at least with key figures, to gird a strong, compelling tale that connects past with present.

“‘El Camino’ isn’t horrible, but it’s not commendable either, and given the legacy of ‘Breaking Bad,’ mildly entertaining isn’t good enough.”

“‘El Camino’ is a high-quality piece of suspense and action filmmaking carried by Paul’s still-tremendous performance as Jesse Pinkman. It looks great, sounds great and if you’re a fan, it’s full of cameos and references that are sure to amuse. It’s also – and this is not an insignificant problem – largely unnecessary as it pertains to the larger ‘Breaking Bad’ narrative. At least it’s unnecessary in an innocuous and entertaining way. It doesn’t do any harm. It just gives answers I’m not sure I cared about to questions I’m not sure I asked.”

“El Camino is a playful project, very fun, not always necessary. It’s an alternate series finale, a reunion special – and, maybe, an elaborate make-good. I love a lot of ‘Breaking Bad,’ and I still think the show whiffed when it mostly banished Jesse in the last few episodes. His central role became a sidelong ramification, one more piece of collateral damage in the fallrise of Walter White (Bryan Cranston).

“Not a big deal, maybe; Paul won his third Emmy for that season. Did Gilligan feel, deep down, like he owed the character something more? With Walt left for dead in the ‘Bad’ finale, ‘El Camino’ becomes Jesse’s story, through and through.”

Early ratings hits and misses: ‘Stumptown,’ ‘Prodigal Son’ lead TV’s new season

Aaron Paul stars in Netflix’s “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie,” now available for streaming. (Photo: Ben Rothstein/Netflix via AP)

“‘El Camino,’ out today, lives up to ‘Breaking Bad’s’ legacy of propulsive storytelling. The film is a visceral, ruminative, and emotionally satisfying epilogue in which the broken Jesse reconciles with his past and searches for the hope and humanity he’d lost – or, rather, been denied by Walt.”

“‘El Camino’ began life as a short film Gilligan wanted to make for the series’ 10th anniversary. Though it expanded to feature length… it still feels like the gift to fans it was originally designed to be, rather than something essential to the larger ‘Breaking Bad’ experience. But when you have Vince Gilligan operating near the peak of his powers, and taking the time to fix one of the few things the show didn’t get quite right, it makes for one hell of an entertaining gift.”

“’El Camino’ makes choices that limit its success and that don’t serve the legacy of ‘Breaking Bad.’ But its arrival at a place of wholeness after two hours of painful anxiety suggest that, though the path Gilligan and company took was at times a dubious one, ‘El Camino’ can’t, finally, be said to have lost its way.”

“Aside from a few unnecessary character cameos, most of which you could easily guess but none of which I will spoil here, ‘El Camino’ avoids the pitfalls of this year’s many feature-length sequels to TV shows. There’s little of the fan-service inanity that abounded in the ‘Downton Abbey’ film and none of the sentimental self-indulgence of ‘Transparent’s’ insufferable musical finale. Like AMC’s ‘Breaking Bad’ prequel ‘Better Call Saul,’ as well as morally flexible saloon owner Al Swearengen’s (Ian McShane) storyline in HBO’s ‘Deadwood: The Movie,’ it completes the unfinished portrait of a character who remains on viewers’ minds.”

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[chatpile]

I was supposed to get up at 8:00 today to watch El Camino. I didn’t do that, because I went to sleep at 4:30am, and didn’t get out of bed until past midday. Even then that was to go to the toilet and get food; I went to bed again straight after. I was too miserable to sleep last night. I was supposed to see Ali and Alice at the Buttery tonight. I didn’t do that either. I allowed myself the comfort of an early (relatively) night, and watched El Camino in bed. My history with Breaking Bad is a long one. I started watching it by a recommendation from Oscar, whom I no longer speak to. We drifted apart after leaving sixth form meant we had less in common to discuss on The Student Room. I miss him. My first viewing of Breaking Bad got as far as season three; specifically the Fly episode. I lost interest I suppose, which sucks because the final two episodes of season three are two of my favourites in the entire show. My second watch through started in August after year 11. My mother was sorely unimpressed with my GCSE results. I didn’t eat for three days after I got them, because I was too embarrassed to even see her. I couldn’t bring myself to go into the kitchen. On the third day, I collapsed at Aldenham while leading Merlin the horse. It was the first time I’d ever fainted. My vision just went black. Understandably, my colleagues encouraged me to take the day off. Tash drove me home, until I arrived and no one was in and I realised I didn’t have my key. Then she drove me to Waitrose and bought me chocolate milk and a ham sandwich and we went back to Aldenham. I crashed on their couch and watched Breaking Bad; they had it on DVD. I remember watching the episode where the song ‘Fallacies’ is used in the closing credits, and making a note of the episode so I could look up the song. I remember Tim coming in and asking if I was watching an episode with ‘Hugo’, when he meant Hector/Tio. I remember feeling safe and cared for that day. While I was into Breaking Bad before, that was I suppose the start of my obsession. Watching the series again, beyond where I’d watched to previously, coincided with the broadcast of the final season, and believe me when I say no one was as hyped up as me. I watched in free periods at college, not to mention in actual chemistry class. God I was a terrible student. Jesse was always my favourite. Like all insufferable Tumblr girls I referred to him as ‘my son’, but also my husband. And also I was him. I’m not exaggerating when I say that all I wore in college were three Breaking Bad shirts I got from Comic Con in 2013. I had badges. I had the box set. I got three different Breaking Bad mugs for birthdays. Aleesha bought me a Jesse poster for secret santa.  I always related to Jesse. Not because I felt I was at risk of my chemistry teacher asking me to cook meth with him. But I felt like someone who never lived up to my potential. I felt like the outcasted sibling in the family, whom is a disappointment to everyone. I felt like someone that never pursued my art hobby. Above all I suppose I just felt sorry for him. I saw him suffer, and I felt that too. Sixth form was a difficult time for me. Living with my abusive father almost killed me. It turned me into someone I’m not. My self harming was the worst it ever got. My house was somewhere I avoided. I only felt uncomfortable there, and unsafe. My father was so unpredictable. I avoided him at all costs, but every interaction that he initiated became a shouting match. I was stressed beyond words. I couldn’t ask for help.  So, cheesy as it sounds, I’ll always remember Breaking Bad as something that I turned to for comfort in the dark times. I adored Jesse and related to him a lot. I watched some episodes over and over again. I watched interviews, parodies, the DVD extras, the lot. Breaking Bad, frankly, was a huge part of my personality. That’s why watching El Camino now has been so bittersweet. Seeing how the actors have aged reminds me of how much time has passed between now and back when I was in college. It reminds me of how different things were. At the time it all seemed so fragile. I’m stressed right now because of RP2, but back then everything hung in the balance. I was so close to not getting into vet school. Hell, I didn’t even get the grades I needed. I don’t believe in fate or a higher power. They let me into vet school because they had spaces to fill and not enough people did get the grades. But I like to think that it was the universe throwing me a bone after I suffered for so long. Now, I think of all the things I have now. I’m an adult. I can make my own decisions. I can eat what I want, when I want. I can go where I want, when I want. I’m in vet school. I’m in vet school! Like I always wanted, like I worked so hard for, less than a year away from graduation. I’m lying typing this in my own super comfy double bed, with brand new bedsheets that have bunnies on them. Bunnies! I have been very low recently but when I put into perspective how much vet school means to me. It’s ok. It’s all ok. It’s going to be ok.  El Camino was a masterpiece of an ending to Jesse’s story. I was hurt badly by all of Jesse’s flashbacks. I know how intolerable it is to have the memories of your abuse reoccuring, never giving you any fucking peace. I know my past has made me a worse person, and a worse friend to those who deserve better. I relate to Jesse. So. Fucking. Much. He got his happy ending, though. It wasn’t a straight road. It was hard even after the worse was over. But he made it through. He’s safe. He’ll be okay. And if Jesse Pinkman’s going to be okay then there’s hope for me.

[rejectedbad]

Rejected Bad: Boulder Dash

The following is a rejected script from an early season of Breaking Bad.

INT. METH LAB - NIGHT

The room is dimly lit, filled with the pungent smell of chemicals. Walter White, the once-respected chemistry teacher turned cannibal methamphetamine cook, stands near a table, eagerly biting into a perfectly cooked steak made from a grisly human clavicle.

Walter (savouring the taste):  Mmm, Walter, you've really outdone yourself tonight. This clavicle steak is delicious.

Jesse Pinkman, Walter's young and impulsive meth-making partner, sits nearby, monitoring a batch of blue meth cooking in a large glass container. He looks up, amused by Walter's carnivorous indulgence.

Jesse:  Dude, you're seriously eating a human bone steak again? That's some hardcore stuff, Mr. White. Jesse tries to change the topic to ignore Walter's needs to feast. Jesse: But hey, speaking of old school, did you ever play those old video games?

Walter (chuckling):  Who has time for video games, Jesse? Pac-Man is still fantastic, but I'm far too busy cooking the finest meth this town has ever seen. So go on, indulge me. Which one are you talking about?

Jesse grins mischievously, sensing an opportunity to engage Walter in an unlikely conversation.

Jesse:  Well, do you remember the C64 version of "Boulder Dash"? Just thinking about those retro games brings back memories, you know?

Walter, now wiping his mouth with a napkin, pauses for a moment. The tune from the C64 version of "Boulder Dash" starts playing in his head, and he subtly starts whistling it.

Walter (whistling):  Da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da...

Jesse can't help but chuckle at the sight of Walter, a hardened drug lord, whistling an old video game tune.

Jesse:  Damn, Mr. White, who would've thought you'd be into vintage gaming? But hey, if I had to pick the best-ever 64, it'd definitely be the Nintendo 64. Nothing beats that, man.

Walter's face suddenly becomes serious, his eyes narrowing. He wipes his mouth of cooked blood then puts down his napkin and picks up a nearby crowbar, gripping it menacingly.

Walter (low and intimidating):  Jesse, you know I don't tolerate disrespect in my presence. The Commodore 64 was a true pioneer, and comparing it to the Nintendo 64? That's crossing the line, my friend.

Jesse's amusement quickly fades as he realises the 8-bit-ness of the situation. He nervously looks around, thinking of a way to defuse the tension.

Jesse (backtracking):  Hey, man, I didn't mean anything by it! Just personal preference, you know?

Walter takes a few slow and deliberate steps towards Jesse, crowbar still gripped tight in white knuckled hand, his eyes locked onto him with an intense and menacing gaze.

Walter (menacingly):  Prefer the wrong thing, and you might find yourself experiencing some 'personal preference' too, Jesse.

Jesse swallows hard, beads of sweat forming on his forehead, realising he may have pushed his luck too far this time, but is thankful he didn’t bring up the magenta on Cave B.

FADE OUT.

[vinuaudienceblogs-blog]

Audience Studies (3P18) Blog #2

Welcome to the second installment in a three-part blog series regarding my audience experiences. You’re roughly 66% of the way through having to read what I have got to say regarding audiences once you get to the bottom of this blog. Lucky You!

Audiences have engulfed our lives to a point where it's nearly impossible to escape them, this is mainly due to the fact that as a society we can easily become an audience or a presenter. With modern technological advances, it is simple to connect with others using social media and other forms of media. So, unless you isolate yourself on a remote island it is highly unlikely that you would escape the clutches audiences have on our lives. Our very own existence in modern times seems to revolve around what other people think of us, social media has created a world where people find value and acceptance through “likes” and “comments” rather than them being their own character regardless of what others think. This occurrence of people relying on social media for social interactions from an audience point of view is essentially amazing in the sense that you can have a reach to a large group of people but it comes with much negativity and the loss of our reality. In short, audiences come with ups and downs depending on the context.

For this blog, I will be looking at different articles and chapter 6 on John L Sullivan’s text “Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions, and Power”. This blog will be heavily opinion based as you have seen regarding my opinion on the modern social media world, it will also revolve around my own personal experiences with audiences and I will relate my experiences back to the textbook along with certain articles to strengthen my point and vice versa.

SEMIOTICS: In the text “Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions and Power” the sixth chapter is about interpreting and decoding mass media texts, the chapter goes on to talk about semiotics. The term semiotics basically means “the systematic study of signs and their significance in society” (Sullivan, 2013). On the other hand, it is also defined as “the study of everything that can be used for communication: words, images, traffic signs, flowers, music, medical symptoms and much more. Semiotics studies the way such “signs” communicate and the rules that govern their use” (Seiter,1992). Both of these definitions revolve around an object/message containing some form of a sign/meaning that can be interpreted. The text defines “signs” as “referring to things that they are not. They are markers that contain vital information about the experience, object or idea that is being referred to” (Sullivan, 2013). Semiotics can be used to give meaning to signs as follows.

One of the most influential television shows that I have had the pleasure of watching was “Breaking Bad”, it was a crime/ drama about a high school chemistry teacher who due to extenuating circumstances decides to become a meth cook. The show was directed by Vince Gilligan and I consider it one of my favorite TV shows of all time, as do many others. What made the show so interesting was not just the storyline but also the various uses of signs and messages that hold more meaning than you would see at one glance. There were many signs throughout the show with people coming up with their own interpretations for each of them. One memorable sign that I saw was the episode where Walter White spends an entire episode chasing after a common housefly, towards the end of the episode he says “Its all contaminated” to Jesse Pinkman. The housefly as I see it is a sign of where Walter’s life was at during that moment, his life at that point in the show was falling apart and he was not able to control it, just like how he couldn’t capture the fly.

Another memorable sign that Breaking Bad left behind was (Spoiler Alert, Skip to next paragraph if you do not want to see Breaking Bad spoilers) the final episode of the series. Oddly enough Vince Gilligan named the final episode “Felina”, at first it seems to be the term “finale” but in another language. However, looking further into the term “Felina” (as a sign) we can see that the director purposefully used elements in the periodic table to come up with the namesake of the finale. “Felina” would then literally turn into the elements Ferrous/Iron, Lithium and Sodium. However, the meaning goes beyond just the elements, this is because each element relates to an actual “object”. For Iron it would mean blood as Iron is found within our bloodstream, then for Lithium, it would be methamphetamine since lithium is a core ingredient in meth, and finally, Sodium can be attributed with tears. This is an ideal title for the finale because that is exactly how the story comes to an end, with Walt being shot and bleeding out on the floor next to the methamphetamine lab and Jesse escaping with tears in his eyes. No wonder its one of the best TV shows ever created, I was proud to be part of the Breaking Bad audience!

SIGNIFIER & SIGNIFIED: Modern semiotic studies have come up with different ways of theorizing signs, it was originally thought of by Ferdinand de Saussure who outlined how exactly to decode these texts using the ideology of the signifier and the signified (Sullivan, 2013). In short, the signified is how a sign is formulated/interpreted by the audience. Whereas a signifier is the object/sign/action in its entirety.

To relate the ideology of the signifier and the signified in an audience sense, I would use the example of a show that I have seen called “The Bachelor”. The Bachelor is a show that started out back in 2002 and is still running to this day, the show follows the basis of people finding love. The show gets an eligible bachelor who goes on dates with multiple women over a set time period and in the end chooses who moves onto the next round of dates, eventually the number of women slims down to a few and the bachelor has to decide on who they will end up with based on the brief experiences that they had. The method that is used for the women in the bachelor to go onto the next round is done by the bachelor giving a certain amount of roses to the women that he chooses, not everyone will get a rose and hence they are out of the running. To think of the show in a more audience studies related fashion, then we could look at what the signifier and the signified are in terms of the bachelor. The way that I see it, the signifier would be the rose, even the physical act of handing the rose to a woman. The signified, on the other hand, would have to be the feelings of attraction the bachelor has for the woman that the rose is presented to. As a member of an audience, it is up to us to determine what the “signified” meaning is, some people may think differently regarding the rose when compared to me. The Bachelor example is one of the easiest ways to put the terms signifier and signified into perspective, it is rather difficult to explain those two terms because of the varied perceptions that people may have and how they interpret the example provided (The Bachelor). P.S. Not a fan of the show it was just a simple way to explain the signified vs signifier lol.

DEXTER??: The Crime/ Drama is another one of my favorite TV shows that were ever made, it would be a crime in itself if I did not mention that within my blog. The article by Granelli and Zenor summarize the plot of the show by saying “The series followed the exploits of Dexter Morgan. By day, he is a blood-spatter analyst employed by the Miami Metro Police Department. But at night, he is sociopathic serial killer who functions outside of the written law, and dispenses punishment to those who “deserve” it. The allure of the character is the service that he provides. Dexter’s role is to make us safe by ridding the world of those who slip through the cracks of the legal system. This is what Dexter refers to as “The Code of Harry.” It is the standard by which others are judged. When they meet the code, only then can Dexter punish the guilty” (Granelli, Zenor, 2016). The article also goes on to examine the character of Dexter Morgan and the affiliations that people create with the fictional character. Studies are done on the participants to determine where they stand on anti hero like protagonists based on Dexter’s actions.  There are four factors that are brought to the article and each factor has to do with what a certain percentage of the participants thought about Dexter’s morality.

If I was to be included in this study, I would definitely be on either the first factor or the second because I am a genuine fan of the show. The article states that “Factor 1 does not believe that Dexter Morgan is a crazy sociopath. Instead, they believe that he is a hero. They believe that he is using his impulses for good and is not misusing revenge” (Granelli, Zenor, 2016). I tend to agree with that statement because Dexter seems to pursue justice and if he doesn’t act on his impulses then his targets would go around killing innocent people. However, a part of me does also agree with the second Factor because the deception that Dexter uses to fit in with everyone else, can actually be seen in our real lives by certain people (obviously not serial killers but “fake friends” would be a good example). Regarding factor 2 the article states that “they believe that the shows focuses more on the complexity of humans. For this factor, the show is about how Dexter Morgan is hiding his alter ego and reinforces the idea that we never know who people really are” (Granelli, Zenor, 2016). This statement is also agreeable because it is quite relatable to some of our every day lives and interactions that we may have with people that seem deceptive/off. This article in my opinion seems to be a little over the top because it is only a TV show, and TV shows are created with the sole purpose of entertainment in mind. So, Dexter is a really good form of entertainment if you are into shows in that genre. TV shows cannot cater to everybody.

Looking at the TV show Dexter in an audience studies perspective would primarily revolve around taking a semiotic point of view and also finding some aspects of the signifier and the signified. As far as semiotics are concerned, they are visible throughout the series, since Dexter was a show of deep symbolism as much as it was horror. There is a semiotic connection that exists with Dexter’s “trophies”, his “trophies” are samples of blood that he takes from each one of his victims before taking their lives. The trophies can be attributed with Dexter having a feeling of accomplishment. He feels accomplished because he believes that he is doing the right thing and the trophies are proof of his actions and of him honoring the code that his father left behind.

As far as the signifier applies in Dexter, it that would have to actually be the plastic wrap and the tools/ weapons that he uses. The signified in this scenario would be the death of Dexter’s target, since the plastic wrap is the last thing that the victim sees before going into the light (or hell), it can, therefore, be attributed with imminent death.

CONCLUSION: Congratulations you have made it to the end of my blog, I hope it wasn’t too bad. Hopefully, you learned something about the use of semiotics and the uses of the signifier/signified within and audience (in this case television shows). You probably also learned a lot about the kind of television shows that I am into and the ones that I typically do not like (the bachelor). You are now 66% of the way through in regards to reading my blogs, only one more to go! I don’t know who is more relieved, me or you?

[rossjoedwards]

The First (and Last) Step Toward Happiness: A Journey Into the Unknown

“This world is so strange that anything may happen, or may not happen. Being an agnostic makes me live in a larger, a more fantastic kind of world, almost uncanny. It makes me more tolerant.” Jorge Luis Borges

In my experience, the first step toward leading a happier life is counterintuitive. At first glance, it’s even nonsensical. Perhaps this is why the first step to being happier is hard to take, or even to see. Sometimes a long path of life experiences, contemplation, and self-discovery occurs before the first step. In this essay, I want to explore this path toward happiness not as an authority telling the reader what to do, but as someone interested in well-being and spiritual philosophy, who thinks that some of you might be interested as well. There is not one path to any destination, and someone else’s discovery is not your own, so make sure that you search your own experiences and intuitions. As Joni Mitchell wrote in the song ‘Amelia’, “People will tell you where they’ve gone / they’ll tell you where to go / but till you’ve get there yourself you never really know.”

First, allow me to say a few things on why I think the first step is hard to see, and then we’ll get onto what it actually is. Recently I visited my parents in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and was pleased to find that during the entirety of my vacation, just by coincidence, the television channel AMC was airing a Breaking Bad marathon, a show that actually took place in Albuquerque. I’d watched when it came out and enjoyed it, and it felt fortuitous that a marathon would coincide with extra time to kill. Late at night, the TV beckoned my family and me to witness the exploits of protagonist Walter White, meek high school chemistry teacher turned notorious meth maker.

It was fun to rewatch some of the show, but a few episodes in I became aware that now, only a few years later, I see it in a different light. There was something I missed the first time around: the whole show is a control fantasy. A middle-aged man, frustrated by his job, stricken with worry about his family’s future, and faced with his own mortality, transforms his mundane world into a high stakes drug empire. As an audience, we follow on the edge of our seats, living vicariously through Walt as he grows confident, gains power, and learns how to be a badass. Leaving aside the moral deplorability, how much we would all love to experience these same triumphs?

(Mild spoilers for Breaking Bad in this paragraph.) In the final episode Walt admits that he did it all for himself. “I was good at it,” he says. As viewers we recognize that Walt lost his moral compass along his journey, that his actions were unforgivable, and yet, deep down, we wish to reclaim our lives like Walt did. We want to show everyone that we too have unfulfilled, unlimited potential.

One doesn’t need to be a murderous drug dealer to feel like Walter White. When someone questions our judgment, our thoughts might immediately turn to revenge, before we even realize it. “You don’t think I’ll succeed?” Our thoughts take on a Walt-like quality. “I’ll show you.” This kind of thinking can actually be a tremendous motivating force for us. We strive for years to become wealthy enough to gloat to our doubting friends, while someone with different values and social pressures is driven to meditate for twelve hours a day, to prove his or her “spiritual progress” to the community.

While that kind of intense motivation may bring worldly achievements in droves, happiness, unfortunately, doesn’t necessarily follow. We may, like Walt, explode in the supernova of our ambitions, but if we were to stop and look back on the journey itself, we see one of anxiety, paranoia, and self-righteous pride alternating with shameful defeat. And this is only considering our own happiness, let alone that of those around us.

One day we may stop to wonder if our adolescent dreams of dying in a hail of gunfire, or drinking ourselves to death in artistic abandon, or winning the competition of life at all costs, is really what’s best for ourselves, our loved ones, or anyone else. Is life best spent taking what’s rightfully yours? Or is there more to it?

This is an excerpt from a longer article that can be found here: https://medium.com/@rossjedwards/the-first-and-last-step-toward-happiness-a-journey-into-the-unknown-c69d36530fcf#.stuim6rap

The image above is Georgia O’Keefe’s Ladder to the Moon (1958).