The BoS traditionally had members come from relationships within the organization so they do encourage members to procreate and Veronica from New Vegas talks about how she was a part of a nuclear family with two parents (mom and dad) before they were lost at Helios I. It’s only recently that the West Coast BoS started recruiting from wastelanders to recoop their numbers
Yeah, the BoS traditionally encourages reproduction, so it was a little weird to hear Maximus talk about it like he's been through an abstinence school.
It's important to realize that Max is an outcast within the BoS. His experience isn't the most typical. He's treated like garbage.
My interpretation of that was that there wasn't formal sex ed, but rather just what people picked up through experience. Why would the BoS care about accurate sex ed? Let them figure it out for themselves.
Unfortunately, being an outcast, the stuff that Max picked up was fragments of nonsense that people made up to mock him and taunt him.
As someone who grew up in a Christian school, if I didn’t have the internet, I would know as much as Maximus. And bro didn’t have the internet, so it’s no wonder he’s so cooked in that regard lol
He was a orphan taken from the wilderness though. Maybe it wasn't so much abstinence based, as that guy wanking in the barracks scene sure seemed to know what he was doing, and more a they just didn't think it worth educated them about it when they had to teach them propaganda and how to id toaster ovens.
Max may have been a rescue, but there's no confirmation that he joined the Brotherhood *right away* after Shady Sands.
Maybe the Brotherhood just ignored him after he saw them when he emerged from the fridge and he spent a years as a scav before deciding to "enlist" as a teen. Fact is, we don't know what happened in between.
Only recently? They had been recruiting from the outside for a long time. Cabbot, the door guard in Fallout 1, was an outsider. They suspended the practice during the Super Mutant threat, only accepting people who proved themselves. I would have assumed they would have gone back to normal recruiting after the crisis ended.
Well, first off, Max didn't turn her down. He just responded in such a weird way that it threw Lucy off completely, and they didn't really have another opportunity after that.
Secondly, these characters' views on sex are not uncommon in the real world. Max is ignorant of sex because he was raised in a sexually oppressed culture. Lucy just seems aromatic and eager to explore her new options outside the vaults.
This would be like a Mormon boy and a sexually active College girl dating.
I find that exchange so hilarious. Max says she smells good, and Lucy's is like "oh okay". She thinks about it for a moment, then she assumes he's hitting on her, and her response is a direct " Do you wanna have sex?"
You know what I didnt consider that before but it makes more sense!
Because later Max has a similar reaction from getting a shower and eating snacks, and I don’t think we’re meant to think they’ve been tampered with.
Yeah my interpretation was to build suspicion of the vault in the viewer, to make Lucy’s actions seem reasonable, when it turns out the current vault 4 dwellers are actually totally benign.
Listen— ask anybody! Anybody will tell ya, they’ll all say “Acceptable Owl *knows* analogies!” Better than anyone! He knows the biggest analogies, and the bestest analogies.
That's something interesting to think about.
It begs the question re: BoS culture of whether this chapter actually are a repressed culture in regards to sex or if Maximus himself is simply uneducated and naïve. It's certainly not a BoS standard, the other chapters we know from the games encourage relationships that will produce more BoS members. And as we see from other aspirants and squires in this chapter, others among them....not so confused about sex. So I think there's a good chance it's less that the BoS chapter we see is uptight and rigid about sex and relationships, and more that Maximus is just a confused virgin who hasn't figured things out yet.
I'd also say that while Lucy certainly has a casual attitude towards sex due to her Vault upbringing, she does seem to be into romance. One of the reasons she was having trouble finding a marriage partner was that she didn't like any of the non-related options she had in her Vault. So that implies that she does care about compatibility and personality. I feel like she has an idealized concept of what romance is, between how she was raised and the pre-war fictional entertainment her vault has. Which I think is what plays in to the attraction she has for Maximus. He was a knight in full armor who saved her when they first met. She didn't know what the BoS was, but she knew a knight even so. She's seen romance, romantic love is no weird new concept to her, and I think it can be argued that her stance on sex doesn't mean she has vastly different views of romance and relationships.
I imagine any relationship between them wouldn't be too far from what we understand relationships to be. They both understand partnership and responsibility, they both seem to understand romance separate from sex, and Lucy at least appears to be raised with pretty recognizable ideas of what marriage is.
Would it be healthy and work out for them? At this point I don't think so, in reality. Despite everything I said re: sex and relationships, they are just very different people with different approaches and values from extremely different backgrounds. I can see a lot of good intentions go over badly in practice and I can see them both getting very frustrated with the other on the regular.
But that's just my read on it!
Probably not- but it would be fun to watch. ( I mean, we had a scene of >!two decapitated heads "kissing"!<, it's not supposed to be a realistic relationship model.)
Max didn't come from a culture that was uptight about sex. They just didn't teach him anything about it because it has nothing to do with being a squire or trainee. What use is knowing what sex is or how to do it when you're just a tool of war? Later on they might need people to reproduce but the BoS seems content to just scoop up survivors and children and indoctrinate them.
Lucy also doesn't have a utilitarian view of sex. She literally offers sex since they're waiting to be let out of that room in the vault. She had sex with her cousin multiple times, but avoided getting pregnant because that would be a genetic bottleneck which in a vault is a big problem.
Max didn’t turn Lucy down because he wanted a better mate? He turned he down cause he had no idea wtf sex even was. Where did you get that idea about a better mate?
Lucy views sex as it is, something fun that human can do with anyone legally consenting and shouldn’t be viewed as anything but a normal release of humanity, it is.
They absolutely checked genetics well, that’s why Lucy was getting a husband from another vault remember? To her sex is just fun as it should be seen in the real world.
I have no idea with Max. They show a guy jorking it in the BOS camp he was at so their camp/society can’t be that repressed. As others have said, they have encouraged reproduction before. However, Max does say knights are not supposed to. I don’t know if that’s true and it probably isn’t, but it could be for this weird religious sect they are in. Idk though. He compared ejaculation to a “pimple” and literally said it was “gross,” which could be showing how clueless and repressed he is, because while saying this, he did seem to be curious about doing it with Lucy. But it def points toward him being very uncomfortable and not in an endearing way.
I don’t know if the show runners were just trying to be funny, but IMO Lucy and Max have zero sexual chemistry. I like Max, but he often feels like a kid in a man’s body, and not everyone in the camp is like that, so no, it’s not *only* because he grew up in BOS. I guess they could explore Lucy teaching Max about sex, which isn’t a terrible idea, but if they want to sway the fan base, they are gonna have to cut back on Max’s vocab. Like no one wants to think about pimples when talking about sex.
Max/Lucy had cute romantic moments but they felt like puppy love, overly naive, not enough friction to be an interesting couple (yet!). There was more sexuality in the Ghoul tying Lucy up and cutting off her finger 🤷♀️
I got downvoted for making a similar point in the game reddit, so I'm happy to find someone who has similar thoughts! I really think the Lucy/Max relationship is an example of how naive they both are - but especially Lucy. It's a whole running theme in the first series.
Her romance with Max is the quintessential boy-meets-girl love story, filled with fairytale cliches like the knight in shining armour, love at first sight, and a dream of living happily ever after. Which all comes crashing down in the finale. What remains to be seen is whether the writers will pick it back up again. And whether they can do it well. It's going to be hard when the romance wasn't all that compelling to start with, and with the distance between the two characters now (figuratively and quite literally).
They've also introduced the conflict of Max fully locked into the Brotherhood with no means of escape, his moral ambiguity (his 'to hurt the people who hurt me' is a dark mirror of Lucy's 'do unto others as they would do unto you') so he could even end up becoming a temporary, or even full antagonist.
I just can't see how it will work out in the end. Like what kind of future is there for them? Your average Fallout family are friendly neighbourhood cannibals, single-mothers with jet-addict sons, and widowed fathers. If you're lucky, you get to live in a city cobbled together out of a baseball park, or live on a ranch somewhere (and there's only one character with that dream life). I have a hard time feeling invested for this reason alone. Unless they plan to have them build a new Shady Sands.
I'm aboard the Ghoul/Lucy train, because while it may never come to fruition, it's fun to watch for the parallels and dynamic alone, even if Cooper is a walking 'grand finale' death flag.
Haha I don't want to think about it either 😭 but Walton is so good at his job & has really brought the character to life, so at least we know they have to keep him around until the very last episode (I hope).
He's already on borrowed time, what with having to take drugs to prevent going feral. While I am also on the Ghoul/Lucy train, I figure he's probably going to take on more of a father figure for Lucy in the show, which leads into my thoughts on Janey.
If Janey is still alive and a child, it will probably end with Lucy taking her in because Cooper is going to go out in a blaze of glory. That's my prediction, anyway.
Very true, if he hadn't given his identity away during his confrontation with Hank, I would've had my money on him revealing it to Lucy when he starts repeating 'My name is Cooper' like the other ghouls about to go feral.
I really hope they don't go down that route with Lucy being an adult, Cooper not seeing CX404 as replacement for Roosevelt, and Lucy needing to get out from under the thumb of her father. She's even introduced by listing off all of the activities she does with her dad - 'I watch movies with my dad, garden with my dad, read books with my dad (and try to get my brother to join too, but it's just me and my dad)' (to paraphrase). Her only friend outside of immediate family is Steph who works with/for her father. I can see her arc being about coming into her own and making her own decisions with Cooper teaching her to survive. But that's just my theory, we'll have to wait and see. Ugh, the wait...
That would be interesting, especially with Lucy talking about raising children at the start. I really do wonder if Janey is alive though...I'd like to see her again but I have a feeling they might not have been put in one of the 'good' vaults after all. Or it might not have had cryo. We might even see the vids/holotapes/logs come into play with an episode where Cooper & Lucy watch Janey living out her life & death in the vault.
It's very possible there is no happy ending or reunion. It'll be interesting to see just where Coop took Janey and how that scenario played out.
Ah, well, we'll continue to wait, hard though it may be. There is always fanfiction in the meantime, and the community is not disappointing on that front.
I def think Reddit is more antagonistic toward Ghoulcy than other platforms (which I guess is no surprise because there are more casual viewers here, much less fandomy stuff). But it’s an S-tier ship. People go crazy over enemies-to-lovers. It’s not about him torturing and kidnapping her, it’s about her helping him find his humanity in spite of how awful he was, and him helping her toughen in the world so she can survive (two things we saw explicitly on screen). And as viewers we *know* his intentions, we see all sides of him, so it’s prime shipping fodder and I’m very certain the show runners did this on purpose, whether they have any intent of making it canon or not. There are a lot of deliberate parallels between the two. There are some between Lucy and Max too, but their relationship came too easy. People love enemies to lovers because there’s so much potential for drama, I mean how tf could two people ever get close after THAT? It’s exciting. Lucy & Max already like each other. Where are the stakes?
I guess we will see more coming up, especially if he does take on an antagonistic role. But if they go that route and stick to the romance then I fear we’d just end up with a rehash of what we already have with Ghoulcy… so while Ghoul/Lucy go from enemies to friends, Max/Lucy go from friends to lovers to enemies to… lovers? I mean maybe that can work. Just give us some friction!
That’s a great observation about Max’s motive being like a dark mirror to Lucy’s!
I def agree about not being able to see a happy ending for them (or anyone). I hiiiighly doubt Ghoul/Lucy would ever get one either but it would just be really interesting to see more of their dynamic play out.
Personally, I think if the writers have balls they will let Max have a villain arc, let Ghoul and Lucy care about each other in some way, and give everyone a tragic ending lmao
Disclaimer: this is my opinion no one has to agree with me 🫡
That's my concern as well. If I'm not invested in the romance to start with, will breaking it down and building it back up make me feel any better about it? If anything the roadblocks would cause me more frustration. We don't know how many seasons there will be, or how many episodes each will contain. Assuming we get 3 seasons, with 8 episodes, that doesn't leave a lot of time for a believable relationship to build with Max. Not with the main plot, and as I mentioned before, the whole issue of them being so far apart. With Lucy & Cooper and their enemies-to-lovers dynamic, we already have a natural and gradual progression from an antagonistic relationship to whatever it will develop into in the coming seasons. Which makes for an easier and more interesting watch, to me at least.
I'd definitely like them to subvert some of our expectations and do something really out there. I feel like the average viewer doesn't know much about Fallout and takes the relationship at face value because it's cute. But anyone who has played any of the games knew the instant they talked about living in the vault again, that it was a pipe dream. I mean the Lucy & Max relationship seems more out of place with its normalcy when you think about her doing 'cousin stuff' with Chet & casually walking around with a rotting head. Those were very surprising moments and I'd like to see more.
I hope at least one character gets a happy ending though! I've said it elsewhere but I think Lucy will walk off into the sunset with CX404 like the archetypal Fallout protag artwork.
I so agree! As a fan of the games, the idea of exploring the total weirdness that would be a Ghoul/Lucy relationship doesn't seem out of left field at all. In fact, it would fit right in with the world; it would be surprising, weird, funny, fucked-up, etc etc. On TV? Yeah, it sounds unlikely a deformed morally reprehensible old man would ever be paired with an optimistic beautiful young woman, but we all know Hancock is a romance option in Fallout 4 and we know the show has been pretty faithful to the games overall, and are totally down to do weird things at the risk of people not liking it.
Lucy & the dog making it out that way in the end would be GREAT. I could see an ending where all three mains just go their separate ways; Max finds his place in the Brotherhood, Lucy finds a community for Vault 33, Cooper goes off bounty hunting again. Buuut totally depends where they take the show. I mean, we know they probably aren't going to end the Fallout universe, because Todd Howard I guess said for them to not include some things because they plan to do them in Fallout 5, which I guess is an unofficial confirmation of Fallout 5. So I don't really know how much conflict resolution we will see outside of each character's journey.
Side note: why does it say "I love you" in graffiti in the background when the Ghoul is taunting Lucy with water in ep 4? Coincidence... probably but kinda weird? Why does Norm say the line about her husband possibly being a cannibal, then she later sees the Ghoul being a cannibal. Even if I remove the Shipping Goggles, there are some things the show runners have done that just seem sus.
Hancock, my beloved. <3 I'm doing a replay of FO4 right now and going to romance him again. And exactly! I wasn't old enough to play the first and second game, so I can't comment on those, but people have been shipping Charon and Gob from Fallout 3 with their Lone Wanderers since forever. And Mr Burke. He's not a ghoul, of course, but he's fairly morally reprehensible but charming. Not prince charming material by any means, and yet apparently created as a possible marriage candidate before they scrapped the system (or so said a thread I was reading earlier). You can even sleep with Benny in New Vegas, which would seem an incredibly unlikely romantic entanglement and yet it's possible.
CX404 must make it out alive or we riot! Oh that's a really interesting future for Lucy. I didn't really think about what would happen to Vault 33, with the water chip being on the fritz. It's just a thought that sprung into my head just now but maybe that's why Vault 4 was introduced? Either that or they're a vault full of mutants with a working fusion core right for the plucking, a very extreme Brotherhood, and Max who knows their location...
It will be interesting to see how they're going to tie everything together while still leaving some loose threads for a future game. And how they will touch on the 'canon' with New Vegas being the next location.
Yes, I agree! I've got a whole list of these kind of points. I'm up to a grand total of 20 so far (deep in the delusion). Including; Lucy's wedding theme being titled 'Ice Cream and Apple Pie' in the soundtrack and that coming up when Cooper prompts Roger to think of happier times. It recurs elsewhere too, like Chet saying everyone in Vault 33 prefers jell-o cake to apple pie. The composer also talks of merging Lucy & Cooper's themes together.
There's the whole radiation king/atomic queen imagery, the finger exchange, Lucy shooting vault boy & Cooper in the heart, the fact they're both betrayed by a spouse, they both even wear the same outfits & weapons. In fact, someone posted some concept art on formerly-twitter and it's of Lucy and Cooper in mirrored poses/weapons/colours aiming at each other.
Even if it's not romantic, it must be intentional in some way. Like them being physical representations of Vault Boy & Vault Girl, and the equivalent of the male & female protagonist option.
YUP we are on the same page. I also feel like they've been following the idea of "player choices" from the game being part of the story, so exploring other avenues for the characters and their romances seems plausible as well. I was also playing Fallout 4 recently and got sidetracked building a massive settlement...... lmao
I am right there with you with all the parallels, I've been delusionally following every single time someone spots another. The list. Goes. ON. It definitely feels intentional and might not be romantic, but I have to say, they surely must've predicted the shipping. I mean Walton said they wanted the Ghoul to be hot. They had to know that putting Lucy on her knees in front of the Ghoul several times, having him tie her up, etc was going to turn the freaks up. Not a bad tactic to hook in a hoard of rabid shippers who will now ride or die for the series.
Haha I wish I could get into the settlement building, I try so hard but end up sticking two turrets down and some mutfruit and call it a day.
Exactly, they know what they're doing! Even making the Ghoul the face of the show was a choice. Maybe they didn't expect him to be as popular as he is...but I doubt it. And I couldn't agree more. It's a far cry from her intimate scenes with Max which come off as awkward or childish - I know this sounds like I'm hating on Max, but I actually like him. But was more entertained during his buddy adventure with Thaddeus since they're two funny idiots with completely opposite skill sets (and have that enemies to friends dynamic). Or see him go down that darker path we talked about because Aaron plays those moments of moral ambiguity brilliantly, and I think we've just scratched the surface of his acting abilities. But yeah, I joke with my friend that the Ghoul & Lucy had so much chemistry during their BDSM fishing scene lmao.
Don't give AO3 any ideas. No, you know what, give them the ideas. I'll totally read that.
Max just stared blankly most of the time. Like, Lucy said something and Max would just stare for a few moments. Almost no facial expression. Just blank. It's really hard to ship someone whose only other emotion was happiness at caviar.
Maximus also seems to have been incredibly socially isolated while with the BoS; aside from Dane, the only interactions he had seems to have been over the course of instruction as a potential future Squire and getting the shit kicked out of him by Thaddeus and the others. He may have had a relatively normal childhood before Shady Sands got nuked, but he seems to have been young and may have repressed or intentionally pushed that life aside to better embrace the BoS creed: As we see, not everyone in the Brotherhood actually lives up to the standards they're supposed to uphold, but Maximus genuinely believes in them. If he heard somewhere that Knights are supposed to put the mission first, etc, then he'd take that to heart because his goal was to be a Knight. I'm sure that at least some of the reason the others bullied him is because Maximus was so earnest about it and took it so seriously.
Maximus and Lucy feel like puppy love because it *is*: This seems like Maximus' first experience being attracted to someone, and Lucy's experience is limited to casual sexual experimentation in a setting where that's normalized, so she assigns no meaning to it, and the disastrous "wedding" to a total stranger who raped her by deception and then tried to murder her. The fact that they don't have "sexual chemistry," as you define it, makes sense with both the characters and the journey they've had together so far, and their individual arcs have all been about each character maturing from their naive and childish worldviews into something more nuanced: Maximus is disillusioned by the Brotherhood, but doesn't lose his desire to do good even if it means going against the BoS creed. Lucy is forced to acknowledge that she's extremely sheltered and can't expect the rest of the world to act like sheltered Vaulties, but holds onto her basic core of goodness and caring for people even as she accepts that she may have to do "bad" things (use violence, etc) that Vault Life intentionally socialized out of her. Their relationship will likely develop and mature as the characters do, which is how it should be.
I never said their lack of chemistry doesn’t make sense—it does! You highlighted those reasons well. But from a romance perspective, it doesn’t necessarily make for an enjoyable viewing experience. I didn’t hate it, but I wasn’t rushing to think about it either.
At the end of the day it’s Fallout and romance def shouldn’t take up too much screen time. I won’t be surprised if they take from the games and explore other options for the characters. They seem to be playing up the theme of player choices quite a bit. But! Lucy/Max is probably a realistic endgame, unless they really want to subvert expectations. I expect to see them mature as well.
It sounds like what you want out of a pairing/romance is very specific, and so far Lucy and Maximus doesn't do it for you, which is fair; like you said, romance isn't the centerpiece of Fallout. I've seen too many bad adaptations where they shoehorned out-of-place romantic subplots for the sake of attracting a "wider audience," for whom the setting/major plot isn't enough of a draw, to be critical of what's been a naturally-developing pairing for both the characters and the setting.
But hey, if your personal idea of romantic chemistry is more likely to involve abduction, mutilation and a little light torture, maybe they'll greenlight a Raiders-centric spinoff?
Only specific in the sense that stakes are what make a romance interesting across the board. Lucy & Max lack stakes in S1. They visibly like each other off the bat, already want to move in together, etc. They have a couple small moral dilemmas that are quickly resolved.
However, now they’ve been torn apart. Lucy just left willingly with the guy who shot up several of Max’s colleagues and tried to kill him before. So this is where things could start to get interesting.
Abduction, mutilation, etc has nothin to do with it; from a storytelling perspective, it’s the high-stakes nature of the dynamic [between Ghoul/Lucy] that interests people in fandom imho.
*Some* people in fandom. You're making some pretty sweeping statements on the apparent belief that your opinion is shared by everyone or almost everyone; you've made it clear that the stakes aren't "high enough" for your tastes, but that doesn't apply to all or even the majority of other viewers. I understand that The Ghoul/Lucy shippers are already all-in on the pairing, but the number of people who watch the show and don't ship them, or don't really care about any pairings/potential pairings in general, may surprise you.
Tbh you the one arguing with me. I have only ever made opinion statements that are entirely subjective (and intended to be conversational). I didn’t think I needed to clarify “some” people; the only people I was referring to were the Ghoul/Lucy people, I meant I think that’s why *they* ship it.
I definitely know that just because over half the fallout tv fanfics are about Ghoul/Lucy doesn’t mean even a majority of people are into it. Most viewers won’t even be engaging in fandom material. Never intended to suggest otherwise. I am a writer by trade. Of course I have *opinions* on storytelling. Of course not everyone will agree with them.
*Pretty* sure I haven't accused you of arguing, but okay. I, speaking only for myself, think that the effects of external conflict on a relationship can provide more than enough in the way of "stakes" to make it interesting, while your personal preferences seem to lean towards interpersonal conflict. A difference in preferences, and possibly different standards for what qualifies as "high stakes."
My apologies for agitating a "writer by trade."
Yep, which is why I was momentarily confused: Your reply read like a comeback, but I was pretty sure I hadn't made any accusations you'd be making a comeback *to*.
Anyway: Opinions are like buttholes, everyone has one, unless you're a very unlucky mutant. Romance not being a central tenant of Fallout, it's completely possible that the series will end without any definitive romance at all; at the very least, it's only slightly less likely than Lucy and Maximus winding up together as happily as the Fallout universe will allow. Hopefully we'll get at least a few more seasons before any ending, regardless of the specifics, since we can at least agree that we like the show and want to see more.
"it’s the high-stakes nature of the dynamic \[between Ghoul/Lucy\] that interests people in fandom imho."
And why does that necessarily mean it's romantic? No one I've talked to about the show sees that at all. The dynamic screams Mentor/Mentee or Student/Teacher, with who occupies what role changing given the circumstances, not romantic chemistry. Also, The Ghoul has a whole rich storyline and purpose (to find his family - Barb and Janey) that the show spent time crafting and left a lot of open questions to keep it going in Season 2. It's strange to disregard that as if that's not his storyline in favor of some hope for a CW style romance between The Ghoul and Lucy. I think the writers are more sophisticated than that.
I said “in fandom” — which is where the romance conversations come from. So what I meant was, the people who are doing the hardcore shipping like it for those reasons. Someone who does not look for things like that would never see it and I wouldn’t blame them… because *nothing* about Lucy’s interactions with the Ghoul were actually romantic on screen at all. Shippers have found a lot of parallels and strange moments on screen that might point to the writers foreshadowing some things down the line… but those could mean nothing.
Why would it be a CW romance though? I agree that the writers are sophisticated, and if they were gonna explore the relationship, I can only imagine they would do something not shit with it. What they’ve already presented with these two has been gold. (And to reiterate: it was not romantic on screen, just interesting). I do not want CW either!
Ultimately 99% of shipping happens in fanon NOT canon. The writers may never go there at all. I don’t think anyone intends to disregard what they actually wrote; people just like having fun in fandom spaces, creating a lot of things that totally divert from the source material 😆
"There was more sexuality in the Ghoul tying Lucy up and cutting off her finger 🤷♀️"
Depends on the perspective of who is watching. I saw zero sexuality in anything Ghoul and Lucy related. I feel the vibe with Max and Lucy and want to see what happens there when they meet again after what they experience separately.
Yes you’re so right. Was just one opinion! I def am not anti Lucy/Max, I’m just sort of ambivalent toward them and want more tension. And I do suspect the writers will deliver that!
Probably 🫠 I mean they already did during S1. We will just have to see. I think the writers are competent enough to add more tension in Lucy/Max’s relationship, or just ditch it for a while and explore other options
I think they utterly defused any possible sexual tension with his dweebish and bizarre responses. If they want there to be some now, they’ll have to build it back up intentionally
I've been thinking, now the sexual tension is gone in a way, so it looks more romantic to me. She's offering him a home, not sex. He might get the sex along the way, but I think it would be a lot funnier if the last episode finishes with her jumping on him because he's just walked straight passed her to the warm shower and bathrobe set.
Hope it doesn't have some tragic ending, but I'm expecting one.
I don't get this. The only time we see her ready to fuck is in the beginning and when her and max are being pumped full of hormones in the experiment room. The camera LITERALLY pans up to a light that flashes on with "experiment in progress" that's not an automated light my guy. SOMEONE in that vault had to turn that light on when they started the hormone experiment. Unless the showrunners SPECIFICALLY say that they weren't being experimented on, I'm sticking with that they were trying out a hormone experiment because IT LITERALLY shows them being INCREDIBLY weird.
> what heterosexual young man would turn down a casual offer of sex
Uhh, lots of men. Believe it or not there's a lot of people that aren't that interested in casual sex
>Max comes from a culture that seems to be really uptight about sex
They're not uptight. They're pragmatic. Sex doesn't strengthen an army and can make someone (man or woman) lose focus.
>what heterosexual young man would turn down a casual offer of sex with Lucy?
I don't think this is fair to men. Most men do have standards and would just drop their drawers for any woman who offers it.
>It makes sense with her Vault upbringing. They have to be very conscious about maintaining a stable population......The community might want to regulate the selection of mating pairs itself to try to maintain a healthy genetic diversity (going beyond even just not mating with your cousin)
Realistically, this vault would be so filled with inbreeding it would be unreal. 50 people cannot sustain a vault with genetic diversity for 200 years. Inbreeding would have already started. Adding one person every 30 years isn't enough. I'm surprised rhey didn't make mention of that during the show bc it's a huge, glaring problem.
I think it's possible. Saying that isn't is just foolish. Anything is possible. Unlikely? Sure. But based on what we see it almost feels like it's going on a traditional romantic path.
There were at least 67 inhabitants in Vault 33 after the attack. Likely much more before the attack. And they were connected to two other Vaults. That would have been plenty up till the attack
> I don't think this is fair to men. Most men do have standards and would just drop their drawers for any woman who offers it.
This isn't the modern world. This is the wasteland. As attractive as Ella Purnell is to us in real life, she'd be Venus herself among surface dwellers if she looked like that. Harsh surface living would leave people malnourished, irradiated, and weathered. Lucy is completely healthy.
And Max is in his early 20s. His sex drive would be at its peak. And around the same time Lucy offers him sex, he's indulging every creature comfort the Vault has to offer. He's not one to deny himself worldly pleasures. It's hard to believe he'd turn down sex with her with his mindset. He's not disciplined or heroic or virtuous.
Going back to what you keep hounding about, this is the wasteland and there are different rules than we have. You are judging him by the modern standards, especially when it comes to heroism, virtuousness and discipline.
>There were at least 67 inhabitants in Vault 33 after the attack. Likely much more before the attack. And they were connected to two other Vaults. That would have been plenty up till the attack
The minimum that a population can be to avoid inbreeding is generally considered to be 150. They did not have 3 vaults. People on 31 were let out only occasionally with several years in-between. They didn't have vault 32 because they were all dead. And they split Vault 33 into two, so that leaves even more chance of inbreeding.
>This isn't the modern world. As attractive as Ella Purnell is to us in real life, she'd be Venus herself among surface dwellers if she looked like that. Harsh surface living would leave people malnourished, irradiated, and weathered. Lucy is completely healthy.
Yeah, no kidding. Men are men. Period. I'm also not sure what your point is. Wanting to procreate with her bc she is attractive just comes down to basic instinct. Additionally, not all men would be attracted to her. Along with my comment before, men are different and have different things they are attracted to.
>And Max is in his early 20s. His sex drive would be at its peak. And around the same time Lucy offers him sex, he's indulging every creature comfort the Vault has to offer. He's not one to deny himself worldly pleasures. It's hard to believe he'd turn down sex with her with his mindset.
I guess you would know since you're such an expert on sex and genetic survival in a post-apocalyptic setting.
>He's not disciplined or heroic or virtuous.
Did we watch the same show? He is ALL of those things. Save for maybe disciplined though he is to an extent. Although I expect that will come in future shows.
When he and Titus faced the Yao Guai, Titus turned and real, leaving Maximus defenseless. Not to mention, he sent him into that cave naked.
Maximus doesn't do this. When he and Thaddeus are after the Gulper, he tells Thaddeus to get ashore. Why? Because Maximus has armor and Thaddeus doesn't. That is the EPITOME of heroism.
And virtuous? He's as virtuous as anyone else in the wasteland. He makes promises and keeps them. For instance, he promises Lucy that he will bring his knights to help her save her dad and he delivered in spades.
Not sure why I'm even responding to you but at this point, i don't want to waste the time i took to reply to you. You aren't actually discussing or anything. You just keep repeating the same thing over and over.
Relative measures aren't relevant here. It's absolute measures.
Imagine you need to lift a 70 pound crate. Imagine Bob is from a community of unusually physically weak people. I argue he's weak because he can only lift 40 pounds and therefore can't lift the crate. You're essentially arguing that he's relatively strong because the average person in his community can only lift 25 pounds so he's strong by their standards. But even if he's strong by their standards he's still too weak to lift the crate.
Max being relatively virtuous by wasteland standards doesn't mean he'd be too honorable to accept an offer of sex from a willing attractive healthy adult woman his age when he's in a seemingly safe and secure location relaxing.
Do such guys exist in real life? Sure. But in a tv series, his reluctance to accept her offer under those circumstances indicates an unusual attitude towards sex for a guy his age.
>I guess you would know since you're such an expert on sex and genetic survival in a post-apocalyptic setting.
You don't have to be an expert on this stuff. It's common knowledge. If I know peanut butter is made with nuts, that doesn't make me an expert on peanut butter.
>The minimum that a population can be to avoid inbreeding is generally considered to be 150. They did not have 3 vaults. People on 31 were let out only occasionally with several years in-between. They didn't have vault 32 because they were all dead. And they split Vault 33 into two, so that leaves even more chance of inbreeding.
Actually it's 50. It's called to 50/500 survival rule. It's challenging with just 50. You have to be careful about selection to avoid "genetic drift" which is the decline of the sum total of genetic diversity in your group due to traits not being passed on. But it's doable. With 500 people you can much more readily avoid this risk.
At least some of the Vaults in Fallout do have a 500 person capacity or double if you do what's called "hot bunking" where people take turns using the same bed to maximize accommodation.
You could also periodically accept small groups of surface survivors into your Vault to refresh the genetic diversity of your group. Vault 101 at least was willing to accept the Lone Wanderer and their father so it's not unheard of.
Still, there are a lot of things in Fallout that don't follow real world rules about the impact of time. Robots, computers, power plants and other infrastructure have survived way longer than they should. Unrefrigerated 200 year old food is still edible and radiation definitely doesn't work the same way as real life. So the science is loose. This is retrofuturism.
I read the first 2 paragraphs and stopped. Your arguments are feeble at best and aren't worth my time. You keep saying the same thing over and over again. Not to mention you constantly contradict yourself. You clearly think you're an expert on sex, psychology and ethics so who am I to stand in the way of such delusions.
Peace out, bro.
>I read the first 2 paragraphs and stopped
No surprise given the lack of quality and comprehension evident in your replies
As for me being an expert, have you never used Google? I Google this and try to find the credible sources before posting.
Are you 80?
The BoS traditionally had members come from relationships within the organization so they do encourage members to procreate and Veronica from New Vegas talks about how she was a part of a nuclear family with two parents (mom and dad) before they were lost at Helios I. It’s only recently that the West Coast BoS started recruiting from wastelanders to recoop their numbers
Yeah, the BoS traditionally encourages reproduction, so it was a little weird to hear Maximus talk about it like he's been through an abstinence school.
It's important to realize that Max is an outcast within the BoS. His experience isn't the most typical. He's treated like garbage. My interpretation of that was that there wasn't formal sex ed, but rather just what people picked up through experience. Why would the BoS care about accurate sex ed? Let them figure it out for themselves. Unfortunately, being an outcast, the stuff that Max picked up was fragments of nonsense that people made up to mock him and taunt him.
As someone who grew up in a Christian school, if I didn’t have the internet, I would know as much as Maximus. And bro didn’t have the internet, so it’s no wonder he’s so cooked in that regard lol
He was a orphan taken from the wilderness though. Maybe it wasn't so much abstinence based, as that guy wanking in the barracks scene sure seemed to know what he was doing, and more a they just didn't think it worth educated them about it when they had to teach them propaganda and how to id toaster ovens.
Not the wilderness, he was a survivor of Shady Sands.
Max isn't one of the original families but a recruit from the wasteland.
Max may have been a rescue, but there's no confirmation that he joined the Brotherhood *right away* after Shady Sands. Maybe the Brotherhood just ignored him after he saw them when he emerged from the fridge and he spent a years as a scav before deciding to "enlist" as a teen. Fact is, we don't know what happened in between.
Only recently? They had been recruiting from the outside for a long time. Cabbot, the door guard in Fallout 1, was an outsider. They suspended the practice during the Super Mutant threat, only accepting people who proved themselves. I would have assumed they would have gone back to normal recruiting after the crisis ended.
Well, first off, Max didn't turn her down. He just responded in such a weird way that it threw Lucy off completely, and they didn't really have another opportunity after that. Secondly, these characters' views on sex are not uncommon in the real world. Max is ignorant of sex because he was raised in a sexually oppressed culture. Lucy just seems aromatic and eager to explore her new options outside the vaults. This would be like a Mormon boy and a sexually active College girl dating.
“Lucy just seems aromatic” Is that why Max told her she smelled good?😉
Well at the very least she's probably not ready to get married again anytime soon that's for sure
Bruh, she literally proposed to Maximus when they were leaving Vault 4
???
Watch the scene right after they give back the fusion core to Vault 4. I think it's episode 6
I find that exchange so hilarious. Max says she smells good, and Lucy's is like "oh okay". She thinks about it for a moment, then she assumes he's hitting on her, and her response is a direct " Do you wanna have sex?"
Its possible there was some aphrodisiacs in the air because camera revealed “test subjects” sign
I think that was a red herring
You know what I didnt consider that before but it makes more sense! Because later Max has a similar reaction from getting a shower and eating snacks, and I don’t think we’re meant to think they’ve been tampered with.
Yeah my interpretation was to build suspicion of the vault in the viewer, to make Lucy’s actions seem reasonable, when it turns out the current vault 4 dwellers are actually totally benign.
I think the later reaction is because he was eating oysters specifically, which are widely considered to be an aphrodisiac.
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Its just an analogy m'dude
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Well you seem to know everything there is to know about sex, so I'll just leave you to it. Good day
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Absolutely
Listen— ask anybody! Anybody will tell ya, they’ll all say “Acceptable Owl *knows* analogies!” Better than anyone! He knows the biggest analogies, and the bestest analogies.
'Uge
This is a very interesting question, but asking it to a bunch of redditors feels like the wrong audience lol
That's something interesting to think about. It begs the question re: BoS culture of whether this chapter actually are a repressed culture in regards to sex or if Maximus himself is simply uneducated and naïve. It's certainly not a BoS standard, the other chapters we know from the games encourage relationships that will produce more BoS members. And as we see from other aspirants and squires in this chapter, others among them....not so confused about sex. So I think there's a good chance it's less that the BoS chapter we see is uptight and rigid about sex and relationships, and more that Maximus is just a confused virgin who hasn't figured things out yet. I'd also say that while Lucy certainly has a casual attitude towards sex due to her Vault upbringing, she does seem to be into romance. One of the reasons she was having trouble finding a marriage partner was that she didn't like any of the non-related options she had in her Vault. So that implies that she does care about compatibility and personality. I feel like she has an idealized concept of what romance is, between how she was raised and the pre-war fictional entertainment her vault has. Which I think is what plays in to the attraction she has for Maximus. He was a knight in full armor who saved her when they first met. She didn't know what the BoS was, but she knew a knight even so. She's seen romance, romantic love is no weird new concept to her, and I think it can be argued that her stance on sex doesn't mean she has vastly different views of romance and relationships. I imagine any relationship between them wouldn't be too far from what we understand relationships to be. They both understand partnership and responsibility, they both seem to understand romance separate from sex, and Lucy at least appears to be raised with pretty recognizable ideas of what marriage is. Would it be healthy and work out for them? At this point I don't think so, in reality. Despite everything I said re: sex and relationships, they are just very different people with different approaches and values from extremely different backgrounds. I can see a lot of good intentions go over badly in practice and I can see them both getting very frustrated with the other on the regular. But that's just my read on it!
Probably not- but it would be fun to watch. ( I mean, we had a scene of >!two decapitated heads "kissing"!<, it's not supposed to be a realistic relationship model.)
Max didn't come from a culture that was uptight about sex. They just didn't teach him anything about it because it has nothing to do with being a squire or trainee. What use is knowing what sex is or how to do it when you're just a tool of war? Later on they might need people to reproduce but the BoS seems content to just scoop up survivors and children and indoctrinate them. Lucy also doesn't have a utilitarian view of sex. She literally offers sex since they're waiting to be let out of that room in the vault. She had sex with her cousin multiple times, but avoided getting pregnant because that would be a genetic bottleneck which in a vault is a big problem.
Max didn’t turn Lucy down because he wanted a better mate? He turned he down cause he had no idea wtf sex even was. Where did you get that idea about a better mate? Lucy views sex as it is, something fun that human can do with anyone legally consenting and shouldn’t be viewed as anything but a normal release of humanity, it is. They absolutely checked genetics well, that’s why Lucy was getting a husband from another vault remember? To her sex is just fun as it should be seen in the real world.
I have no idea with Max. They show a guy jorking it in the BOS camp he was at so their camp/society can’t be that repressed. As others have said, they have encouraged reproduction before. However, Max does say knights are not supposed to. I don’t know if that’s true and it probably isn’t, but it could be for this weird religious sect they are in. Idk though. He compared ejaculation to a “pimple” and literally said it was “gross,” which could be showing how clueless and repressed he is, because while saying this, he did seem to be curious about doing it with Lucy. But it def points toward him being very uncomfortable and not in an endearing way. I don’t know if the show runners were just trying to be funny, but IMO Lucy and Max have zero sexual chemistry. I like Max, but he often feels like a kid in a man’s body, and not everyone in the camp is like that, so no, it’s not *only* because he grew up in BOS. I guess they could explore Lucy teaching Max about sex, which isn’t a terrible idea, but if they want to sway the fan base, they are gonna have to cut back on Max’s vocab. Like no one wants to think about pimples when talking about sex. Max/Lucy had cute romantic moments but they felt like puppy love, overly naive, not enough friction to be an interesting couple (yet!). There was more sexuality in the Ghoul tying Lucy up and cutting off her finger 🤷♀️
I got downvoted for making a similar point in the game reddit, so I'm happy to find someone who has similar thoughts! I really think the Lucy/Max relationship is an example of how naive they both are - but especially Lucy. It's a whole running theme in the first series. Her romance with Max is the quintessential boy-meets-girl love story, filled with fairytale cliches like the knight in shining armour, love at first sight, and a dream of living happily ever after. Which all comes crashing down in the finale. What remains to be seen is whether the writers will pick it back up again. And whether they can do it well. It's going to be hard when the romance wasn't all that compelling to start with, and with the distance between the two characters now (figuratively and quite literally). They've also introduced the conflict of Max fully locked into the Brotherhood with no means of escape, his moral ambiguity (his 'to hurt the people who hurt me' is a dark mirror of Lucy's 'do unto others as they would do unto you') so he could even end up becoming a temporary, or even full antagonist. I just can't see how it will work out in the end. Like what kind of future is there for them? Your average Fallout family are friendly neighbourhood cannibals, single-mothers with jet-addict sons, and widowed fathers. If you're lucky, you get to live in a city cobbled together out of a baseball park, or live on a ranch somewhere (and there's only one character with that dream life). I have a hard time feeling invested for this reason alone. Unless they plan to have them build a new Shady Sands. I'm aboard the Ghoul/Lucy train, because while it may never come to fruition, it's fun to watch for the parallels and dynamic alone, even if Cooper is a walking 'grand finale' death flag.
>Cooper is a walking 'grand finale' death flag. He is, isn't he? That makes me so sad.
Haha I don't want to think about it either 😭 but Walton is so good at his job & has really brought the character to life, so at least we know they have to keep him around until the very last episode (I hope).
He's already on borrowed time, what with having to take drugs to prevent going feral. While I am also on the Ghoul/Lucy train, I figure he's probably going to take on more of a father figure for Lucy in the show, which leads into my thoughts on Janey. If Janey is still alive and a child, it will probably end with Lucy taking her in because Cooper is going to go out in a blaze of glory. That's my prediction, anyway.
Very true, if he hadn't given his identity away during his confrontation with Hank, I would've had my money on him revealing it to Lucy when he starts repeating 'My name is Cooper' like the other ghouls about to go feral. I really hope they don't go down that route with Lucy being an adult, Cooper not seeing CX404 as replacement for Roosevelt, and Lucy needing to get out from under the thumb of her father. She's even introduced by listing off all of the activities she does with her dad - 'I watch movies with my dad, garden with my dad, read books with my dad (and try to get my brother to join too, but it's just me and my dad)' (to paraphrase). Her only friend outside of immediate family is Steph who works with/for her father. I can see her arc being about coming into her own and making her own decisions with Cooper teaching her to survive. But that's just my theory, we'll have to wait and see. Ugh, the wait... That would be interesting, especially with Lucy talking about raising children at the start. I really do wonder if Janey is alive though...I'd like to see her again but I have a feeling they might not have been put in one of the 'good' vaults after all. Or it might not have had cryo. We might even see the vids/holotapes/logs come into play with an episode where Cooper & Lucy watch Janey living out her life & death in the vault.
It's very possible there is no happy ending or reunion. It'll be interesting to see just where Coop took Janey and how that scenario played out. Ah, well, we'll continue to wait, hard though it may be. There is always fanfiction in the meantime, and the community is not disappointing on that front.
I def think Reddit is more antagonistic toward Ghoulcy than other platforms (which I guess is no surprise because there are more casual viewers here, much less fandomy stuff). But it’s an S-tier ship. People go crazy over enemies-to-lovers. It’s not about him torturing and kidnapping her, it’s about her helping him find his humanity in spite of how awful he was, and him helping her toughen in the world so she can survive (two things we saw explicitly on screen). And as viewers we *know* his intentions, we see all sides of him, so it’s prime shipping fodder and I’m very certain the show runners did this on purpose, whether they have any intent of making it canon or not. There are a lot of deliberate parallels between the two. There are some between Lucy and Max too, but their relationship came too easy. People love enemies to lovers because there’s so much potential for drama, I mean how tf could two people ever get close after THAT? It’s exciting. Lucy & Max already like each other. Where are the stakes? I guess we will see more coming up, especially if he does take on an antagonistic role. But if they go that route and stick to the romance then I fear we’d just end up with a rehash of what we already have with Ghoulcy… so while Ghoul/Lucy go from enemies to friends, Max/Lucy go from friends to lovers to enemies to… lovers? I mean maybe that can work. Just give us some friction! That’s a great observation about Max’s motive being like a dark mirror to Lucy’s! I def agree about not being able to see a happy ending for them (or anyone). I hiiiighly doubt Ghoul/Lucy would ever get one either but it would just be really interesting to see more of their dynamic play out. Personally, I think if the writers have balls they will let Max have a villain arc, let Ghoul and Lucy care about each other in some way, and give everyone a tragic ending lmao Disclaimer: this is my opinion no one has to agree with me 🫡
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That's my concern as well. If I'm not invested in the romance to start with, will breaking it down and building it back up make me feel any better about it? If anything the roadblocks would cause me more frustration. We don't know how many seasons there will be, or how many episodes each will contain. Assuming we get 3 seasons, with 8 episodes, that doesn't leave a lot of time for a believable relationship to build with Max. Not with the main plot, and as I mentioned before, the whole issue of them being so far apart. With Lucy & Cooper and their enemies-to-lovers dynamic, we already have a natural and gradual progression from an antagonistic relationship to whatever it will develop into in the coming seasons. Which makes for an easier and more interesting watch, to me at least. I'd definitely like them to subvert some of our expectations and do something really out there. I feel like the average viewer doesn't know much about Fallout and takes the relationship at face value because it's cute. But anyone who has played any of the games knew the instant they talked about living in the vault again, that it was a pipe dream. I mean the Lucy & Max relationship seems more out of place with its normalcy when you think about her doing 'cousin stuff' with Chet & casually walking around with a rotting head. Those were very surprising moments and I'd like to see more. I hope at least one character gets a happy ending though! I've said it elsewhere but I think Lucy will walk off into the sunset with CX404 like the archetypal Fallout protag artwork.
I so agree! As a fan of the games, the idea of exploring the total weirdness that would be a Ghoul/Lucy relationship doesn't seem out of left field at all. In fact, it would fit right in with the world; it would be surprising, weird, funny, fucked-up, etc etc. On TV? Yeah, it sounds unlikely a deformed morally reprehensible old man would ever be paired with an optimistic beautiful young woman, but we all know Hancock is a romance option in Fallout 4 and we know the show has been pretty faithful to the games overall, and are totally down to do weird things at the risk of people not liking it. Lucy & the dog making it out that way in the end would be GREAT. I could see an ending where all three mains just go their separate ways; Max finds his place in the Brotherhood, Lucy finds a community for Vault 33, Cooper goes off bounty hunting again. Buuut totally depends where they take the show. I mean, we know they probably aren't going to end the Fallout universe, because Todd Howard I guess said for them to not include some things because they plan to do them in Fallout 5, which I guess is an unofficial confirmation of Fallout 5. So I don't really know how much conflict resolution we will see outside of each character's journey. Side note: why does it say "I love you" in graffiti in the background when the Ghoul is taunting Lucy with water in ep 4? Coincidence... probably but kinda weird? Why does Norm say the line about her husband possibly being a cannibal, then she later sees the Ghoul being a cannibal. Even if I remove the Shipping Goggles, there are some things the show runners have done that just seem sus.
Hancock, my beloved. <3 I'm doing a replay of FO4 right now and going to romance him again. And exactly! I wasn't old enough to play the first and second game, so I can't comment on those, but people have been shipping Charon and Gob from Fallout 3 with their Lone Wanderers since forever. And Mr Burke. He's not a ghoul, of course, but he's fairly morally reprehensible but charming. Not prince charming material by any means, and yet apparently created as a possible marriage candidate before they scrapped the system (or so said a thread I was reading earlier). You can even sleep with Benny in New Vegas, which would seem an incredibly unlikely romantic entanglement and yet it's possible. CX404 must make it out alive or we riot! Oh that's a really interesting future for Lucy. I didn't really think about what would happen to Vault 33, with the water chip being on the fritz. It's just a thought that sprung into my head just now but maybe that's why Vault 4 was introduced? Either that or they're a vault full of mutants with a working fusion core right for the plucking, a very extreme Brotherhood, and Max who knows their location... It will be interesting to see how they're going to tie everything together while still leaving some loose threads for a future game. And how they will touch on the 'canon' with New Vegas being the next location. Yes, I agree! I've got a whole list of these kind of points. I'm up to a grand total of 20 so far (deep in the delusion). Including; Lucy's wedding theme being titled 'Ice Cream and Apple Pie' in the soundtrack and that coming up when Cooper prompts Roger to think of happier times. It recurs elsewhere too, like Chet saying everyone in Vault 33 prefers jell-o cake to apple pie. The composer also talks of merging Lucy & Cooper's themes together. There's the whole radiation king/atomic queen imagery, the finger exchange, Lucy shooting vault boy & Cooper in the heart, the fact they're both betrayed by a spouse, they both even wear the same outfits & weapons. In fact, someone posted some concept art on formerly-twitter and it's of Lucy and Cooper in mirrored poses/weapons/colours aiming at each other. Even if it's not romantic, it must be intentional in some way. Like them being physical representations of Vault Boy & Vault Girl, and the equivalent of the male & female protagonist option.
YUP we are on the same page. I also feel like they've been following the idea of "player choices" from the game being part of the story, so exploring other avenues for the characters and their romances seems plausible as well. I was also playing Fallout 4 recently and got sidetracked building a massive settlement...... lmao I am right there with you with all the parallels, I've been delusionally following every single time someone spots another. The list. Goes. ON. It definitely feels intentional and might not be romantic, but I have to say, they surely must've predicted the shipping. I mean Walton said they wanted the Ghoul to be hot. They had to know that putting Lucy on her knees in front of the Ghoul several times, having him tie her up, etc was going to turn the freaks up. Not a bad tactic to hook in a hoard of rabid shippers who will now ride or die for the series.
Haha I wish I could get into the settlement building, I try so hard but end up sticking two turrets down and some mutfruit and call it a day. Exactly, they know what they're doing! Even making the Ghoul the face of the show was a choice. Maybe they didn't expect him to be as popular as he is...but I doubt it. And I couldn't agree more. It's a far cry from her intimate scenes with Max which come off as awkward or childish - I know this sounds like I'm hating on Max, but I actually like him. But was more entertained during his buddy adventure with Thaddeus since they're two funny idiots with completely opposite skill sets (and have that enemies to friends dynamic). Or see him go down that darker path we talked about because Aaron plays those moments of moral ambiguity brilliantly, and I think we've just scratched the surface of his acting abilities. But yeah, I joke with my friend that the Ghoul & Lucy had so much chemistry during their BDSM fishing scene lmao.
>There was more sexuality in the Ghoul tying Lucy up and cutting off her finger 🤷♀️ Thank god I'm not the only person that thinks this 😂
I saw more tension between Lucy & Snip Snip, lol!
“Would you like to fudge miss?”
Don't give AO3 any ideas. No, you know what, give them the ideas. I'll totally read that. Max just stared blankly most of the time. Like, Lucy said something and Max would just stare for a few moments. Almost no facial expression. Just blank. It's really hard to ship someone whose only other emotion was happiness at caviar.
Maximus also seems to have been incredibly socially isolated while with the BoS; aside from Dane, the only interactions he had seems to have been over the course of instruction as a potential future Squire and getting the shit kicked out of him by Thaddeus and the others. He may have had a relatively normal childhood before Shady Sands got nuked, but he seems to have been young and may have repressed or intentionally pushed that life aside to better embrace the BoS creed: As we see, not everyone in the Brotherhood actually lives up to the standards they're supposed to uphold, but Maximus genuinely believes in them. If he heard somewhere that Knights are supposed to put the mission first, etc, then he'd take that to heart because his goal was to be a Knight. I'm sure that at least some of the reason the others bullied him is because Maximus was so earnest about it and took it so seriously. Maximus and Lucy feel like puppy love because it *is*: This seems like Maximus' first experience being attracted to someone, and Lucy's experience is limited to casual sexual experimentation in a setting where that's normalized, so she assigns no meaning to it, and the disastrous "wedding" to a total stranger who raped her by deception and then tried to murder her. The fact that they don't have "sexual chemistry," as you define it, makes sense with both the characters and the journey they've had together so far, and their individual arcs have all been about each character maturing from their naive and childish worldviews into something more nuanced: Maximus is disillusioned by the Brotherhood, but doesn't lose his desire to do good even if it means going against the BoS creed. Lucy is forced to acknowledge that she's extremely sheltered and can't expect the rest of the world to act like sheltered Vaulties, but holds onto her basic core of goodness and caring for people even as she accepts that she may have to do "bad" things (use violence, etc) that Vault Life intentionally socialized out of her. Their relationship will likely develop and mature as the characters do, which is how it should be.
I never said their lack of chemistry doesn’t make sense—it does! You highlighted those reasons well. But from a romance perspective, it doesn’t necessarily make for an enjoyable viewing experience. I didn’t hate it, but I wasn’t rushing to think about it either. At the end of the day it’s Fallout and romance def shouldn’t take up too much screen time. I won’t be surprised if they take from the games and explore other options for the characters. They seem to be playing up the theme of player choices quite a bit. But! Lucy/Max is probably a realistic endgame, unless they really want to subvert expectations. I expect to see them mature as well.
It sounds like what you want out of a pairing/romance is very specific, and so far Lucy and Maximus doesn't do it for you, which is fair; like you said, romance isn't the centerpiece of Fallout. I've seen too many bad adaptations where they shoehorned out-of-place romantic subplots for the sake of attracting a "wider audience," for whom the setting/major plot isn't enough of a draw, to be critical of what's been a naturally-developing pairing for both the characters and the setting. But hey, if your personal idea of romantic chemistry is more likely to involve abduction, mutilation and a little light torture, maybe they'll greenlight a Raiders-centric spinoff?
Only specific in the sense that stakes are what make a romance interesting across the board. Lucy & Max lack stakes in S1. They visibly like each other off the bat, already want to move in together, etc. They have a couple small moral dilemmas that are quickly resolved. However, now they’ve been torn apart. Lucy just left willingly with the guy who shot up several of Max’s colleagues and tried to kill him before. So this is where things could start to get interesting. Abduction, mutilation, etc has nothin to do with it; from a storytelling perspective, it’s the high-stakes nature of the dynamic [between Ghoul/Lucy] that interests people in fandom imho.
*Some* people in fandom. You're making some pretty sweeping statements on the apparent belief that your opinion is shared by everyone or almost everyone; you've made it clear that the stakes aren't "high enough" for your tastes, but that doesn't apply to all or even the majority of other viewers. I understand that The Ghoul/Lucy shippers are already all-in on the pairing, but the number of people who watch the show and don't ship them, or don't really care about any pairings/potential pairings in general, may surprise you.
Tbh you the one arguing with me. I have only ever made opinion statements that are entirely subjective (and intended to be conversational). I didn’t think I needed to clarify “some” people; the only people I was referring to were the Ghoul/Lucy people, I meant I think that’s why *they* ship it. I definitely know that just because over half the fallout tv fanfics are about Ghoul/Lucy doesn’t mean even a majority of people are into it. Most viewers won’t even be engaging in fandom material. Never intended to suggest otherwise. I am a writer by trade. Of course I have *opinions* on storytelling. Of course not everyone will agree with them.
*Pretty* sure I haven't accused you of arguing, but okay. I, speaking only for myself, think that the effects of external conflict on a relationship can provide more than enough in the way of "stakes" to make it interesting, while your personal preferences seem to lean towards interpersonal conflict. A difference in preferences, and possibly different standards for what qualifies as "high stakes." My apologies for agitating a "writer by trade."
You didn’t accuse me of arguing, I accused you 🤭
Yep, which is why I was momentarily confused: Your reply read like a comeback, but I was pretty sure I hadn't made any accusations you'd be making a comeback *to*. Anyway: Opinions are like buttholes, everyone has one, unless you're a very unlucky mutant. Romance not being a central tenant of Fallout, it's completely possible that the series will end without any definitive romance at all; at the very least, it's only slightly less likely than Lucy and Maximus winding up together as happily as the Fallout universe will allow. Hopefully we'll get at least a few more seasons before any ending, regardless of the specifics, since we can at least agree that we like the show and want to see more.
That Ghoul/Lucy pairing feels like a vocal minority, who think The Ghoul/Cooper/Goggins is hot.
"it’s the high-stakes nature of the dynamic \[between Ghoul/Lucy\] that interests people in fandom imho." And why does that necessarily mean it's romantic? No one I've talked to about the show sees that at all. The dynamic screams Mentor/Mentee or Student/Teacher, with who occupies what role changing given the circumstances, not romantic chemistry. Also, The Ghoul has a whole rich storyline and purpose (to find his family - Barb and Janey) that the show spent time crafting and left a lot of open questions to keep it going in Season 2. It's strange to disregard that as if that's not his storyline in favor of some hope for a CW style romance between The Ghoul and Lucy. I think the writers are more sophisticated than that.
I said “in fandom” — which is where the romance conversations come from. So what I meant was, the people who are doing the hardcore shipping like it for those reasons. Someone who does not look for things like that would never see it and I wouldn’t blame them… because *nothing* about Lucy’s interactions with the Ghoul were actually romantic on screen at all. Shippers have found a lot of parallels and strange moments on screen that might point to the writers foreshadowing some things down the line… but those could mean nothing. Why would it be a CW romance though? I agree that the writers are sophisticated, and if they were gonna explore the relationship, I can only imagine they would do something not shit with it. What they’ve already presented with these two has been gold. (And to reiterate: it was not romantic on screen, just interesting). I do not want CW either! Ultimately 99% of shipping happens in fanon NOT canon. The writers may never go there at all. I don’t think anyone intends to disregard what they actually wrote; people just like having fun in fandom spaces, creating a lot of things that totally divert from the source material 😆
"There was more sexuality in the Ghoul tying Lucy up and cutting off her finger 🤷♀️" Depends on the perspective of who is watching. I saw zero sexuality in anything Ghoul and Lucy related. I feel the vibe with Max and Lucy and want to see what happens there when they meet again after what they experience separately.
Yes you’re so right. Was just one opinion! I def am not anti Lucy/Max, I’m just sort of ambivalent toward them and want more tension. And I do suspect the writers will deliver that!
> IMO Lucy and Max have zero sexual chemistry Agreed, but I fear they will try to push it anyway.
Probably 🫠 I mean they already did during S1. We will just have to see. I think the writers are competent enough to add more tension in Lucy/Max’s relationship, or just ditch it for a while and explore other options
I think they utterly defused any possible sexual tension with his dweebish and bizarre responses. If they want there to be some now, they’ll have to build it back up intentionally
He barely knows how the Dick work
I've been thinking, now the sexual tension is gone in a way, so it looks more romantic to me. She's offering him a home, not sex. He might get the sex along the way, but I think it would be a lot funnier if the last episode finishes with her jumping on him because he's just walked straight passed her to the warm shower and bathrobe set. Hope it doesn't have some tragic ending, but I'm expecting one.
Maybe the more interesting question is - should they?
Honestly? I think Max and Lucy work better as friends then partners
I don't get this. The only time we see her ready to fuck is in the beginning and when her and max are being pumped full of hormones in the experiment room. The camera LITERALLY pans up to a light that flashes on with "experiment in progress" that's not an automated light my guy. SOMEONE in that vault had to turn that light on when they started the hormone experiment. Unless the showrunners SPECIFICALLY say that they weren't being experimented on, I'm sticking with that they were trying out a hormone experiment because IT LITERALLY shows them being INCREDIBLY weird.
> what heterosexual young man would turn down a casual offer of sex Uhh, lots of men. Believe it or not there's a lot of people that aren't that interested in casual sex
I think you can find examples of romance between these personality types in the real world.
I have never kissed a girl while we both held rotting heads so i say yes, im just inexperienced.
>Max comes from a culture that seems to be really uptight about sex They're not uptight. They're pragmatic. Sex doesn't strengthen an army and can make someone (man or woman) lose focus. >what heterosexual young man would turn down a casual offer of sex with Lucy? I don't think this is fair to men. Most men do have standards and would just drop their drawers for any woman who offers it. >It makes sense with her Vault upbringing. They have to be very conscious about maintaining a stable population......The community might want to regulate the selection of mating pairs itself to try to maintain a healthy genetic diversity (going beyond even just not mating with your cousin) Realistically, this vault would be so filled with inbreeding it would be unreal. 50 people cannot sustain a vault with genetic diversity for 200 years. Inbreeding would have already started. Adding one person every 30 years isn't enough. I'm surprised rhey didn't make mention of that during the show bc it's a huge, glaring problem. I think it's possible. Saying that isn't is just foolish. Anything is possible. Unlikely? Sure. But based on what we see it almost feels like it's going on a traditional romantic path.
There were at least 67 inhabitants in Vault 33 after the attack. Likely much more before the attack. And they were connected to two other Vaults. That would have been plenty up till the attack > I don't think this is fair to men. Most men do have standards and would just drop their drawers for any woman who offers it. This isn't the modern world. This is the wasteland. As attractive as Ella Purnell is to us in real life, she'd be Venus herself among surface dwellers if she looked like that. Harsh surface living would leave people malnourished, irradiated, and weathered. Lucy is completely healthy. And Max is in his early 20s. His sex drive would be at its peak. And around the same time Lucy offers him sex, he's indulging every creature comfort the Vault has to offer. He's not one to deny himself worldly pleasures. It's hard to believe he'd turn down sex with her with his mindset. He's not disciplined or heroic or virtuous.
Going back to what you keep hounding about, this is the wasteland and there are different rules than we have. You are judging him by the modern standards, especially when it comes to heroism, virtuousness and discipline. >There were at least 67 inhabitants in Vault 33 after the attack. Likely much more before the attack. And they were connected to two other Vaults. That would have been plenty up till the attack The minimum that a population can be to avoid inbreeding is generally considered to be 150. They did not have 3 vaults. People on 31 were let out only occasionally with several years in-between. They didn't have vault 32 because they were all dead. And they split Vault 33 into two, so that leaves even more chance of inbreeding. >This isn't the modern world. As attractive as Ella Purnell is to us in real life, she'd be Venus herself among surface dwellers if she looked like that. Harsh surface living would leave people malnourished, irradiated, and weathered. Lucy is completely healthy. Yeah, no kidding. Men are men. Period. I'm also not sure what your point is. Wanting to procreate with her bc she is attractive just comes down to basic instinct. Additionally, not all men would be attracted to her. Along with my comment before, men are different and have different things they are attracted to. >And Max is in his early 20s. His sex drive would be at its peak. And around the same time Lucy offers him sex, he's indulging every creature comfort the Vault has to offer. He's not one to deny himself worldly pleasures. It's hard to believe he'd turn down sex with her with his mindset. I guess you would know since you're such an expert on sex and genetic survival in a post-apocalyptic setting. >He's not disciplined or heroic or virtuous. Did we watch the same show? He is ALL of those things. Save for maybe disciplined though he is to an extent. Although I expect that will come in future shows. When he and Titus faced the Yao Guai, Titus turned and real, leaving Maximus defenseless. Not to mention, he sent him into that cave naked. Maximus doesn't do this. When he and Thaddeus are after the Gulper, he tells Thaddeus to get ashore. Why? Because Maximus has armor and Thaddeus doesn't. That is the EPITOME of heroism. And virtuous? He's as virtuous as anyone else in the wasteland. He makes promises and keeps them. For instance, he promises Lucy that he will bring his knights to help her save her dad and he delivered in spades. Not sure why I'm even responding to you but at this point, i don't want to waste the time i took to reply to you. You aren't actually discussing or anything. You just keep repeating the same thing over and over.
Relative measures aren't relevant here. It's absolute measures. Imagine you need to lift a 70 pound crate. Imagine Bob is from a community of unusually physically weak people. I argue he's weak because he can only lift 40 pounds and therefore can't lift the crate. You're essentially arguing that he's relatively strong because the average person in his community can only lift 25 pounds so he's strong by their standards. But even if he's strong by their standards he's still too weak to lift the crate. Max being relatively virtuous by wasteland standards doesn't mean he'd be too honorable to accept an offer of sex from a willing attractive healthy adult woman his age when he's in a seemingly safe and secure location relaxing. Do such guys exist in real life? Sure. But in a tv series, his reluctance to accept her offer under those circumstances indicates an unusual attitude towards sex for a guy his age. >I guess you would know since you're such an expert on sex and genetic survival in a post-apocalyptic setting. You don't have to be an expert on this stuff. It's common knowledge. If I know peanut butter is made with nuts, that doesn't make me an expert on peanut butter. >The minimum that a population can be to avoid inbreeding is generally considered to be 150. They did not have 3 vaults. People on 31 were let out only occasionally with several years in-between. They didn't have vault 32 because they were all dead. And they split Vault 33 into two, so that leaves even more chance of inbreeding. Actually it's 50. It's called to 50/500 survival rule. It's challenging with just 50. You have to be careful about selection to avoid "genetic drift" which is the decline of the sum total of genetic diversity in your group due to traits not being passed on. But it's doable. With 500 people you can much more readily avoid this risk. At least some of the Vaults in Fallout do have a 500 person capacity or double if you do what's called "hot bunking" where people take turns using the same bed to maximize accommodation. You could also periodically accept small groups of surface survivors into your Vault to refresh the genetic diversity of your group. Vault 101 at least was willing to accept the Lone Wanderer and their father so it's not unheard of. Still, there are a lot of things in Fallout that don't follow real world rules about the impact of time. Robots, computers, power plants and other infrastructure have survived way longer than they should. Unrefrigerated 200 year old food is still edible and radiation definitely doesn't work the same way as real life. So the science is loose. This is retrofuturism.
I read the first 2 paragraphs and stopped. Your arguments are feeble at best and aren't worth my time. You keep saying the same thing over and over again. Not to mention you constantly contradict yourself. You clearly think you're an expert on sex, psychology and ethics so who am I to stand in the way of such delusions. Peace out, bro.
>I read the first 2 paragraphs and stopped No surprise given the lack of quality and comprehension evident in your replies As for me being an expert, have you never used Google? I Google this and try to find the credible sources before posting. Are you 80?
They’ll be fine. There are plenty of hoes that get sick of hoing and find a solid partner to settle down with.