"It's an interesting flavor profile. It has potential."

October 14, 2020 5:42 PM

"Baking Bad" by heyjupiter: "Jesse Pinkman and his former home-ec teacher Walter White are co-owners of Heisenbrew's Uncertainty, an up-and-coming food truck." A Breaking Bad fanfic with a happy ending, tags: "Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Father-Son Relationship, Drug Addiction, Recovery, Minor Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort". Found via capricorn on MeFi five years ago. Also: "Illicit Alchemy" by Eric Lewis (published this year), a short fantasy story about an alchemist who gets way deeper into her employers' business than she wants.
posted by brainwane (11 comments total)

I’d heard about the ending of BB, so didn’t watch the last season. For me, the series ends with the last episode of Season 4. Which, although still pretty messed up, works okay as a series finale.
posted by darkstar at 5:57 PM on October 14, 2020

Dammit, now I want to read Anthony Bourdain interviewing Jesse Pinkman. Sober, over muffins.
posted by kaibutsu at 6:02 PM on October 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

I enjoyed “Illicit Alchemy” — thank you!
posted by darkstar at 6:51 PM on October 14, 2020

Illicit Alchemy was great. The author has a short story collection on sale for $.99 at Amazon. I'm excited to read it. Thanks for sharing!
posted by entropyiswinning at 11:48 PM on October 14, 2020

darkstar and entropyiswinning: yay!

Whoops - I missed that "Illicit Alchemy" was originally published in 2017 and this is a reprinting. So, not eligible for award nominations for 2020.

kaibutsu: If you write it, I'll read it. :)
posted by brainwane at 4:12 AM on October 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

Now I want the gentle, hipster version of "Better Call Saul", but my fear is that it would be every lawyer show that's ever been on TV.
posted by dannyboybell at 6:26 AM on October 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

These were both amazing! I've not watched breaking bad, and this story was fully understandable and relatable all the same. I think most people have had someone in their life who benefits from you thinking you owe them everything, and it can certainly cause this sort of suspicion when someone is genuinely kind and caring.
posted by turtlebackriding at 9:06 AM on October 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

Now I want the gentle, hipster version of "Better Call Saul", but my fear is that it would be every lawyer show that's ever been on TV.

Even taking most of the Mike stuff out (although I liked how he was done in "Baking Bad"), you'd probably need to throttle back the intensity of Jimmy and Chuck's relationship. Jimmy gets tempted by the big law firms, but ends up doing mostly pro bono work with Kim, including a couple of lovable but clumsy skateboarding goofs. "Pryce" sells molly to ravers; Werner and his guys were building an unzoned dance club in the basement of a laundromat.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:25 PM on October 15, 2020

Love this.

I re-watched BB recently (great for learners of Spanish if you enable the subtitles) and I think I liked it better this time around but... soooo tragic.

I like an alternate universe where Jane and Combo are alive and well. All the character detail is on point.

"It felt a little too personal to send to a bunch of strangers in New Zealand, but Jane had insisted. She'd cried when she read it, and then put a bunch of commas and shit in it for him."
posted by Sheydem-tants at 8:24 AM on October 16, 2020

Speaking of BB and learning Spanish, some time ago, I ran across the series Metástasis, which is a very high quality, episode-by-episode Spanish-language version remake of BB. Excellent acting and production values.
posted by darkstar at 12:34 PM on October 16, 2020

From the Metastasis wikipedia article: "The equivalent of Saul Goodman is named Saúl Bueno."

Unfortunately, this misses the pun in the name: "'S all good, man!" The perils of translation!
posted by kaibutsu at 1:03 PM on October 16, 2020 [1 favorite]