PLAYER NAME: Carolyn CONTACT: kavalier#7118 @ disco HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?:TDM (+ a couple tagins to show I'm not just here to tag my char's wife...)
CHARACTER: Jimmy McGill (he practices law under the name Saul Goodman—in game he'll probably play it by ear) CANON:Better Call Saul CANON POINT: 6x7, Plan and Execution
SORRY IT'S SO LONG, brief summary: young two-bit con artist gets a reality check when his brother, an upstanding attorney, helps him narrowly avoid a prison sentence. He follows said brother across the country to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and from there continues following in his brother's footsteps—working in the mail room at his law firm, getting a law degree (from a less-than-reputable institution), and (eventually) passing the bar exam. Only it turns out his brother isn't entirely pleased with these developments! One might even say he's furious! He sees Jimmy's status as a lawyer as nothing more than a sick joke, a stain on the legal system he reveres above all else. Maneuvering behind the scenes, he ensures Jimmy never works at his firm as a lawyer and routinely undercuts his brother's self-confidence, all in the guise of being supportive.
From there things escalate—almost all of Jimmy's bullshit (and it is Jimmy's bullshit, he's certainly not blameless) can be traced back to his brother's barely concealed contempt for him and conviction that he's incapable of change. Even when offered a cushy job at an established law firm, Jimmy first turns it down and later actively sabotages himself, alienating almost everyone there and getting himself fired. Sure, corporate culture rubs him the wrong way—he bristles at the litany of rules he has to follow in the name of maintaining the firm's image—but in the end, he tanks the job because he can't drown out the little voice that whispers he doesn't deserve it.
ABILITIES | POWERS: Jimmy has no superhuman powers or abilities and zero inclination toward physical combat. What skills he has honed were mainly developed in service of cons: he is very accomplished at faking slip-and-fall accidents, has some experience forging or otherwise fucking with documents (though I wouldn’t put him at the level of an expert) and knowledge of rare coins, and has written and directed several commercials.
Also he has been to bartending school.
As far as legal areas of expertise, he worked as a public defender for some time and had a brief but flourishing solo practice specializing in elder law—the man knows how to draft a will.
PERSONALITY: Jimmy's a con artist. It's instinctive, how his brain works—if a rule can be skirted, a mark manipulated, or a situation turned to his advantage, he's the first to sniff it out. He thinks in shortcuts and dramatic convolutions. Given the opportunity, he'll improvise endlessly, shifting his story and even his identity until he gets what he wants (and ideally, the other party thinks they're getting what they want as well). Growing up, Jimmy watched his father—a man who genuinely thought the best of everyone he met—sacrifice his livelihood for the sake of good intentions. Charles McGill, Sr. was widely beloved, his little corner store a neighborhood fixture, but he never heard a sob story he didn't believe, and in the end his habit of extending everyone the benefit of the doubt proved so costly he went out of business. Jimmy's takeaway from this was that you had to screw people over before they could screw over you—the classic "if you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you." Jimmy can grin and bear humiliation, ridicule, even outright contempt, but he's determined never to be the sucker.
It's a straightforward philosophy; unfortunately Jimmy isn't quite the cynical bastard it requires him to be. He cares for the people around him—even as a full-on scammer wringing money out of Chicago's barflies and tourists, he chose a childhood friend as his partner in crime and stuck by him until he (Jimmy) was arrested. When his brother develops a hypersensitivity to electricity that essentially leaves him housebound, Jimmy brings him fresh groceries and supplies (including his favorite newspapers) day in and day out, doing his best to keep his spirits up. When a couple of would-be conmen he enlists to win over some clients runs afoul of a cartel member hellbent on murdering them, Jimmy puts himself at risk to talk the guy out of it. (This comes with quite a few caveats: Jimmy was shoved into a van and taken to the desert to die along with the unfortunate duo, and came close to just saving his own ass and walking away before his conscience started acting up—but that's kind of how it goes when you're Jimmy. Even managing to do the right thing comes with an asterisk.) Jimmy may be shrewd, able to see all the angles—or at least a lot of them—but he's also emotional, apt to be dragged in less-than-advantageous directions out of loyalty or just plain sympathy. He needs people, cares about them, and wants them to like him.
The people Jimmy loves hold a lot of sway over him, for good and ill. His brother, Chuck, drummed into him that he was shortsighted and selfish, doomed to repeat the same mistakes and hurt the people around him. Unsurprising, then, that most of Jimmy's attempts to change involve remaking himself—first in Chuck's image as an upstanding (which is to say, broke) lawyer, then as the man he thought Kim Wexler (former mailroom coworker, co-law-office-renter, love of his life, etc.) wanted him to be, and finally as Saul Goodman, world-class dirtbag and the embodiment of every shortcoming Chuck liked to throw in his face. (The flip side to all these contortions to fit other people's expectations: when Jimmy sarcastically grouses about the lack of glamour elder law—the field he's shaping up to specialize in—has to offer, Kim cuts through his bullshit, telling him that the elderly need legal support and are often taken advantage of. Because Kim takes what he's doing seriously and sees it as important, Jimmy does too, even parroting some of her talking points later.) By his canon point, however, reinvention isn't the cure-all it once was: Jimmy's made some spectacularly bad choices with lasting, bloody consequences, and doesn't see a way forward that allows him to be himself. With Kim's help, he's fine-tuning the persona that will serve as a buffer between the real Jimmy McGill and the rest of the world—as well as the guilt he can't bring himself to face.
INVENTORY: Other than his clothes (suit, tie, pocket square, loafers, sock garters—the usual):
- pinky ring - Rolex (fake) (like you had to ask) - old-school flip phone - wallet (containing: credit cards, business cards touting the services of Saul Goodman, like $40 cash, a couple restaurant punch cards)
NOTES: A friend is apping ~his wife~ Kim Wexler—I know you guys have limited slots, so if you wind up not having room for both of them, I'd prefer to wait for another app round! Save everyone from having to deal with dramatic pining.
IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-heavy if you got it!
Jimmy McGill | Better Call Saul
CONTACT: kavalier#7118 @ disco
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: TDM (+ a couple tag ins to show I'm not just here to tag my char's wife...)
CHARACTER: Jimmy McGill (he practices law under the name Saul Goodman—in game he'll probably play it by ear)
CANON: Better Call Saul
CANON POINT: 6x7, Plan and Execution
BACKGROUND: ye olde wiki
SORRY IT'S SO LONG, brief summary: young two-bit con artist gets a reality check when his brother, an upstanding attorney, helps him narrowly avoid a prison sentence. He follows said brother across the country to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and from there continues following in his brother's footsteps—working in the mail room at his law firm, getting a law degree (from a less-than-reputable institution), and (eventually) passing the bar exam. Only it turns out his brother isn't entirely pleased with these developments! One might even say he's furious! He sees Jimmy's status as a lawyer as nothing more than a sick joke, a stain on the legal system he reveres above all else. Maneuvering behind the scenes, he ensures Jimmy never works at his firm as a lawyer and routinely undercuts his brother's self-confidence, all in the guise of being supportive.
From there things escalate—almost all of Jimmy's bullshit (and it is Jimmy's bullshit, he's certainly not blameless) can be traced back to his brother's barely concealed contempt for him and conviction that he's incapable of change. Even when offered a cushy job at an established law firm, Jimmy first turns it down and later actively sabotages himself, alienating almost everyone there and getting himself fired. Sure, corporate culture rubs him the wrong way—he bristles at the litany of rules he has to follow in the name of maintaining the firm's image—but in the end, he tanks the job because he can't drown out the little voice that whispers he doesn't deserve it.
ABILITIES | POWERS: Jimmy has no superhuman powers or abilities and zero inclination toward physical combat. What skills he has honed were mainly developed in service of cons: he is very accomplished at faking slip-and-fall accidents, has some experience forging or otherwise fucking with documents (though I wouldn’t put him at the level of an expert) and knowledge of rare coins, and has written and directed several commercials.
Also he has been to bartending school.
As far as legal areas of expertise, he worked as a public defender for some time and had a brief but flourishing solo practice specializing in elder law—the man knows how to draft a will.
PERSONALITY: Jimmy's a con artist. It's instinctive, how his brain works—if a rule can be skirted, a mark manipulated, or a situation turned to his advantage, he's the first to sniff it out. He thinks in shortcuts and dramatic convolutions. Given the opportunity, he'll improvise endlessly, shifting his story and even his identity until he gets what he wants (and ideally, the other party thinks they're getting what they want as well). Growing up, Jimmy watched his father—a man who genuinely thought the best of everyone he met—sacrifice his livelihood for the sake of good intentions. Charles McGill, Sr. was widely beloved, his little corner store a neighborhood fixture, but he never heard a sob story he didn't believe, and in the end his habit of extending everyone the benefit of the doubt proved so costly he went out of business. Jimmy's takeaway from this was that you had to screw people over before they could screw over you—the classic "if you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you." Jimmy can grin and bear humiliation, ridicule, even outright contempt, but he's determined never to be the sucker.
It's a straightforward philosophy; unfortunately Jimmy isn't quite the cynical bastard it requires him to be. He cares for the people around him—even as a full-on scammer wringing money out of Chicago's barflies and tourists, he chose a childhood friend as his partner in crime and stuck by him until he (Jimmy) was arrested. When his brother develops a hypersensitivity to electricity that essentially leaves him housebound, Jimmy brings him fresh groceries and supplies (including his favorite newspapers) day in and day out, doing his best to keep his spirits up. When a couple of would-be conmen he enlists to win over some clients runs afoul of a cartel member hellbent on murdering them, Jimmy puts himself at risk to talk the guy out of it. (This comes with quite a few caveats: Jimmy was shoved into a van and taken to the desert to die along with the unfortunate duo, and came close to just saving his own ass and walking away before his conscience started acting up—but that's kind of how it goes when you're Jimmy. Even managing to do the right thing comes with an asterisk.) Jimmy may be shrewd, able to see all the angles—or at least a lot of them—but he's also emotional, apt to be dragged in less-than-advantageous directions out of loyalty or just plain sympathy. He needs people, cares about them, and wants them to like him.
The people Jimmy loves hold a lot of sway over him, for good and ill. His brother, Chuck, drummed into him that he was shortsighted and selfish, doomed to repeat the same mistakes and hurt the people around him. Unsurprising, then, that most of Jimmy's attempts to change involve remaking himself—first in Chuck's image as an upstanding (which is to say, broke) lawyer, then as the man he thought Kim Wexler (former mailroom coworker, co-law-office-renter, love of his life, etc.) wanted him to be, and finally as Saul Goodman, world-class dirtbag and the embodiment of every shortcoming Chuck liked to throw in his face. (The flip side to all these contortions to fit other people's expectations: when Jimmy sarcastically grouses about the lack of glamour elder law—the field he's shaping up to specialize in—has to offer, Kim cuts through his bullshit, telling him that the elderly need legal support and are often taken advantage of. Because Kim takes what he's doing seriously and sees it as important, Jimmy does too, even parroting some of her talking points later.) By his canon point, however, reinvention isn't the cure-all it once was: Jimmy's made some spectacularly bad choices with lasting, bloody consequences, and doesn't see a way forward that allows him to be himself. With Kim's help, he's fine-tuning the persona that will serve as a buffer between the real Jimmy McGill and the rest of the world—as well as the guilt he can't bring himself to face.
SAMPLE: reunion sans knives
"what would you die for?"
INVENTORY: Other than his clothes (suit, tie, pocket square, loafers, sock garters—the usual):
- pinky ring
- Rolex (fake) (like you had to ask)
- old-school flip phone
- wallet (containing: credit cards, business cards touting the services of Saul Goodman, like $40 cash, a couple restaurant punch cards)
NOTES: A friend is apping ~his wife~ Kim Wexler—I know you guys have limited slots, so if you wind up not having room for both of them, I'd prefer to wait for another app round! Save everyone from having to deal with dramatic pining.
IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-heavy if you got it!