Jul 14
seen from Canada
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seen from Canada
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seen from United States
Rewatching BCS and am back on my bullshit about Tuco Salamanca
Please enjoy some inconsequential headcanons about my favourite highly dysfunctional character and ship:
Tuco was significantly more nervous about getting married than Nadia was. That man was a ball of nerves for days before the actual event and required a lot of distraction to keep from spiraling out about it
Does genuinely try to do right by his people, even if it's sometimes a little heavy handed or misguided. It frustrates him terribly to have his good intentions misunderstood, or worse, intentionally misconstrued
Tuco is the younger sibling, but that didn't stop him from being fiercely protective of his older sister
Cannot get through a family function without drinking, or some kind of substance. Too much going on, too many people. It's not uncommon for him to disappear outside or to a quiet room to get a break from the festivities
Tuco almost always has the radio or tv on in the background when he's home alone. He doesn't like being alone with his thoughts like that and finds that background noise comforting
He learned to sew from his abuelita when he was in his teens and could probably still set up a sewing machine and follow a basic pattern if he put his mind to it
The cartel is highly unpredictable business, so at home he likes to keep things very predictable. Always buys the same brands, follows certain routines, likes things kept in the exact right spot. I doubt he'd even realize that his need for control extended as far as things like grocery shopping or where the spare batteries are kept, but he'd deny it if someone pointed it out to him
Keeping information about work from Nadia is as much about self-preservation as it is to keep her safe. Their home is a safe haven away from cartel business and getting Nadia involved in that takes away some of that security. He's made it clear (you be the judge of what means were used) that no one is to talk to Nadia about cartel business. If there's something she has to know, it comes through him
Whether it's coming down from a high, dealing with mental health fluctuations, or simply ignoring his own needs, Tuco tends to go through periods of being flat out exhausted. The type of exhausted where you can't sleep but you can't seem to open your eyes or move from the couch for hours. Abuelita, Lalo, Nacho and Nadia are the only ones who have seen the full extent of this in his adult life. Those kind of moments are the ones Nacho feels the most sympathy towards him and can see the person he became friends with before things went off track
I need to make a post about Nadia’s relation to/reputation among other BrBa/BCS characters. I’ve talked a lot about her relation to Tuco and her brief uninformed passing connections to other characters (book club with Gale, regular client of Mrs. Nguyen’s nail salon, etc) but I want to delve more into people she regularly interacts with or has had significant interaction with
I want to talk about her relation to her parents, her brother, and her best friends Nadine and Barbie for sure. But I also want to talk about her connection to Lalo, Marco and Leonel, Nacho, Domingo, Hector, and more about her friendship with Abuelita since that’s really what brought her into the storyline
Walt threatening to have Skyler committed to an in-patient facility hits even harder in my timeline where he already knows he can get away with a crime because a woman receiving in-patient psychiatric treatment wasnt taken seriously when she called him out
I don’t think Nadia would ever find out that Hank died getting shot in the face in the desert in a surprise shootout, but if she did I think she’d be happy about it. You know baby girl was putting a curse on his ass for what he did to her man
Thinking about the fact that Tuco must have left Hector and Nadia at the shack in the desert to go get Jesse and Walt
Thinking about the fact that Hector and Nadia don’t like each other but keep a lid on it because they both love Tuco
Thinking about them just sitting in silence staring at each other waiting for the others to show up. They were probably both hoping Marco and Leonel would hurry up and get there so they’d have someone to interact with besides each other
S2E2 Hank Schrader refers to Tuco’s “meth hag girlfriend” which is just Nadia but Hank is a racist sexist piece of shit who is bitter that she’s refused to cooperate from the first time they tried to get her to give up information on Tuco
The first time they met was when he waited outside her job to catch her as she left for the day. Introduced himself as DEA, said he had some questions for her if she didn’t mind talking. She asked if she was under arrest, was told no and said okay bye then. She tried to get in her car to leave and he grabbed the top of her door to stop her closing it, leaned down to try to warn her that she seemed like a nice girl who didn’t know what kind of guy she was getting involved with, he’s dangerous, this isn’t a road she wanted to go down. She said get a warrant and left.
Of course one of Tuco’s guys who he had checking in on her noticed the DEA camped outside of the shelter and reported this back to him. One guy came dangerously close to getting his nose broke for insinuating that she might say something because that was Tuco’s girl. Who the fuck is this guy to question her loyalty? Did he seriously think she was that stupid? By extension, was he questioning his judgement? Punk ass bitch. Besides, Tuco did a pretty good job of keeping Nadia separated from business. She didn’t know anything that the DEA didn’t know already and even if she did, she would never rat him out…right?
Of course the first thing she did when she left the shelter was text him to ask if they could hang out that night, then immediately told him everything when she saw him in person. Tuco didn’t want to admit to having been a little concerned that she might say something but was glad to find out that he was right about where her loyalty laid
Hector and Abuelita had very different approaches to the younger generation of Salamancas, especially when it came to Tuco.
Abuelita was the one who introduced Nadia and Tuco, and she encouraged them to talk and spend time together. Abuelita was no fool, she knew very well about the cartel and her grandson’s involvement, and she knew he had basically no connections outside of the cartel and other criminal associates. As she had from the time he was young she was trying to give him some sense of normalcy, something not centered around the cartel. She was happy when they started dating and thrilled when they got engaged (they had been married less than a year at the start of BCS).
At the wedding, which Lalo graciously offered to host at his estate in Chihuahua, there was some tension between Hector and Abuelita. He didn’t like Nadia, and didn’t think Tuco needed to be involved with her at all, let alone married to her. All he saw was a distraction who would make his nephew soft and less dedicated to his duties to the family. Abuelita disagreed. She felt it would be good to have someone to ground him and that having a companion would be good for him, especially for his mental health. She didn’t say it, but she knew she was getting older and worried greatly about him being alone without at least one good support when she died.
Lalo was actually on Abuelita’s side and told Hector as much. He said “What could it hurt? If it makes him happy then good, but if it’s a good reason to keep him out of trouble, even better.”