Anyway, being the guy who is kinda largely responsible the President Bundy Trope (as on AH.com I wrote Made a Good Lawyer, the timeline that popularised Bundy as a politician by fleshing him out), I would agree that Bundy is a lazy pick at this point. He may have been a phresh pick in 2015, but by now he's overused and ultimately cliche, with timelines that use him failing to justify his political standing, why he's where he is, and ultimately how he is changed by his decision to go into politics. Indeed because a lot of TLs, such as NDCR, focus solely on election-to-election because of their flawed wikipedia infobox, you might as well put the words "Evil Charisma Bad Man" into the name slot and there's no change.
In regards to Good Lawyer, I like to think that I at least made the concept interesting- it's not the first President Bundy TL, indeed it actually isn't a President Bundy TL (and we never actually get to the Presidency, it ended while still at the 1996 election, where the majority of updates took place), but I do like to think that it was the first that actually tried to ground it in a sense of plausibility. It is, however by my reckoning, not a good alternative history, relying too much on convergence and Bundy's personality not being changed, as well as being too... well, the bit where he pivots to being apologetic towards his anti-gay speech doesn't make sense with the rest of his characterisation, even if at the time I was justifying it with "he doesn't believe what he's saying, he's just saying it to look good". The actual sequence of events- in which he ultimately chooses to stay in Law School after winning the woman who became in in-universe wife back, resulting in him becoming a King County Prosecutor, resulting in him getting a high profile off the back of high-profile cases, and ultiemtly running for US Senate- makes sense, but at the end of the day, keeping him an active serial killer (even if its never explicit within the 'present' of the timeline that he has killed anyone) was a mistake.
Anyhow, one of the reasons I ultimately ended it was because I was unable to reconcile Bundy being a politician and Bundy being a killer, due to there being a tension to that which is ultiemtly destructive to the timeline. In hindsight I should have probably written about this in the actual thread- at the very least so the grifters wouldn't pick through the remains and copy without understanding what made Made a Good Lawyer an ultimately a failed alternative history.
In regards to Good Lawyer, I like to think that I at least made the concept interesting- it's not the first President Bundy TL, indeed it actually isn't a President Bundy TL (and we never actually get to the Presidency, it ended while still at the 1996 election, where the majority of updates took place), but I do like to think that it was the first that actually tried to ground it in a sense of plausibility. It is, however by my reckoning, not a good alternative history, relying too much on convergence and Bundy's personality not being changed, as well as being too... well, the bit where he pivots to being apologetic towards his anti-gay speech doesn't make sense with the rest of his characterisation, even if at the time I was justifying it with "he doesn't believe what he's saying, he's just saying it to look good". The actual sequence of events- in which he ultimately chooses to stay in Law School after winning the woman who became in in-universe wife back, resulting in him becoming a King County Prosecutor, resulting in him getting a high profile off the back of high-profile cases, and ultiemtly running for US Senate- makes sense, but at the end of the day, keeping him an active serial killer (even if its never explicit within the 'present' of the timeline that he has killed anyone) was a mistake.
Anyhow, one of the reasons I ultimately ended it was because I was unable to reconcile Bundy being a politician and Bundy being a killer, due to there being a tension to that which is ultiemtly destructive to the timeline. In hindsight I should have probably written about this in the actual thread- at the very least so the grifters wouldn't pick through the remains and copy without understanding what made Made a Good Lawyer an ultimately a failed alternative history.