#stg Thaddeus has more fics where he's the main character than Max or at least he did for a while

[anne-ominous]

loved your take on the barb and max dilemma in the fandom!! tysm i felt so validated lol! the internet was making me feel crazy!!

Like I am very clearly a ghoul simp.

I have always loved ghouls since the first time I played New Vegas, and Cooper is obviously my favorite character in the show, but like.

Just the way fandom has glommed on to him makes me so uncomfortable. Like I don't even dislike the Ghoulcy ship, but so much of what I've seen in fanfics so far reminds me of the old bad days in the Harry Potter fandom where you can't just ship characters, you have to DESTROY the the person being pushed as the canon love interest first.

My takes on this are all based on fanfics because I spent a lot of time reading them since I can't write for beans myself, so it bugs me more when I catch trends:

It's a little funny that this bashing is so blatantly done in a setting specifically centered around there being no such thing as black and white, and you're often presented with choices that simply don't have a "good" ending.

But like, the fandom reactions are tripping over themselves to either amplify and fetishize how evil The Ghoul can be or alternatively softboi Cooper tamed in a week by Lucy. Either way, it's a fuckfest all about them.

But for Max, it's all: "hey this kid who lost everything at a young age and was raised in a cult he believed to be his saviors, only to be abused and berated and shown the ugly realities of life in a short span of time just stood back and let this guy (who was gloating about how he was going to get him tortured and executed for 'incompetence' despite being the one to do all the hard work and save his ass) die instead of helping him, despite the fact in the games we reverse-pickpocket live grenades into NPC's pants for a fraction of the shit-talk and disrespect Max was getting, so he's clearly evil and doesn't deserve anything".

And for Barb I have literally seen like two fics that mention her as something other than a glorified plot point, or an accessory to turn Ghoulcy into a 3-way. And I can kind of understand her not being featured as much in present day fics since we don't have the answers as to where she is or what she did during/after the divorce, but nearly every pre-war fic that does have her in the character tags she's an afterthought being actively cheated on for AU Ghoulcy to happen. If she has any characterization in those fics, it's a one-dimensional corporate bitch who is not a good mother to Janey.

I'm sorry, the woman who was willing to sell her soul to keep her family safe and together doesn't care about her daughter as much as Lucy who just popped in as a babysitter or whatever? The literal Deal With The Devil for her family's survival is suddenly doing it all for herself?

Like, duh, she's wrong. We know the spoilers, and that whatever survival Vault-Tec was offering wasn't worth the blood on her hands for supporting them, but that's the whole fucking point? I've seen "burn the world down and kill everyone in my way for my family" types get venerated before in other fandoms, so it's weird why suddenly Barb is deemed uninteresting here.

And I've seen a lot of defensive posts from people about how it's simply a coincidence the OTP is an old white guy and the young white girl, but like, is it also a coincidence that so many of the shippers have suddenly regressed to character-bashing instead of multi-shipping in this specific scenario? That only the OTP get nuance and character studies, and thoughts behind their actions and motivations?