I hope we didn't miss the party

THE PITT | 2.15, “9:00 P.M.”

Bonus:

I'm sure you probably know this, but I'm actually kinda new to all this ghoul stuff. Yeah. I still got my nose. That's the worst thing, really, just waiting for it to fall off 

Max wouldn't "judge" Lucy for being violent, because he understands that sometimes it's neccesary. Sometimes that's how you survive in the wasteland. He's done so himself to protect his life and even urged Lucy to do the same when they encountered the fiends (and then resorted to violence himself once she wasn't capable). He wouldn't judge her for it.

And Lucy doesn't "like to be violent". She stared at her own shaky hand with eyes filled with guilt after killing the Kings. She cried over having to bash Welch's severed head even when she begged her to. She wouldn't have killed the Kings or killed the man in Sonny's shop had she not been hooked on chems because of her injuries. Lucy doesn't like violence, she's a victim of the circumstances.

Max wouldn't "judge" Lucy for being violent, because he understands that sometimes it's neccesary. Sometimes that's how you survive in the wasteland. He's done so himself to protect his life and even urged Lucy to do the same when they encountered the fiends (and then resorted to violence himself once she wasn't capable). He wouldn't judge her for it.

The times we've seen Maximus go through with killing people were self-defense of himself or another party (which was the case with the fiends and Xander). He also technically killed Titus by refusing to lend him aid, but Titus was also being a big jerk to him. And while he planned to assassinate Quintus to try and stop the Brotherhood civil war, he couldn't go through with it because the process of planning and deliberately confronting someone with the intention of killing them is different from spur-of-the-moment occasions like the other ones.

And I think when I refer to Maximus potentially judging Lucy...

...well, honestly, I don't think Lucy nor Maximus know each other all that well. They didn't spend that much time together in season 1. Seriously, only maybe three to five days tops pass between when she meets up with him in episode 5 of season 1 and when they part ways at the radio station in episode 7, plus their brief interaction in Filly in episode 2, and their brief exchange at the observatory in episode 8 that was cut short when he got knocked out by her dad and she had to abandon him to depart with the Ghoul because she'd be killed by the Brotherhood reinforcements when they showed up.

Given how little time they spent together, well, honestly they're still complete strangers to one another.

The way Maximus talks about Lucy with Dane and Thaddeus, he comes off to me like he's got some idealized image of her in his head. And since they parted ways, Lucy has shown that her morals have started slipping, and she's done things that wouldn't necessarily gel with this image Max has of her (like doing the whole The Good, The Bad & The Ugly "bounty" scam with the Ghoul, taking chems and rationalizing doing so, stealing things because she doesn't have enough caps, or being willing to chip her own father for selfish reasons).

On Lucy's end, well, we don't know what she thinks of Maximus. Seeing as in season 2, she never discussed him onscreen at any point with either the Ghoul or with her dad, and there's no hint that she had offscreen discussions about him with the Ghoul. And she and Maximus weren't reunited until the final scene of the season, at a point when she was also in a bad place mentally due to her father having just effectively killed himself. If anything, I could argue Lucy actually knows more about the Ghoul than she knows about Maximus, considering that she and the Ghoul traveled together all the way to Vegas over the course of several weeks. (I'm not saying that as a Ghoulcy shipper, I'm saying that as someone looking at things with a more analytical perspective.)

Now, since Lucy ended the season reunited with Maximus, season 3 will undoubtedly open with them in some kind of relationship while also dealing with the NCR-Legion conflict and Lucy trying to find out what her dad was up to and who was pulling the strings behind him. And they're probably going to be an endgame pairing (because for Lucy, she'll either end up with Max, with the Ghoul, or single).

For me, I hope that in the early episodes of season 3, the writers will address with Lucy and Maximus the fact that they've changed since the end of season 1 in what they want in life. Lucy's not the naive vault dweller she was when Maximus first met her, and Maximus is no longer part of the Brotherhood of Steel and is trying to forge a new identity for himself, one that's likely with the NCR (a faction Lucy might not necessarily hold in high regard, considering how the Ghoul's ways of thinking have rubbed off on her).

a response to the “canon did it first” excuse for racism

Whenever someone points out that certain metas/fics/headcanons have racist implications, the overwhelming response tends to be that it can’t actually be the product of racial bias—because it’s just “canon.” After all, if a character really is cruel, petty, or abusive in the source material, how can Fandom be held responsible for writing them in character?

On the surface, this can seem like a perfectly good argument—except that it completely sidesteps the actual implications.

Consider, for example, the following interpretations (all from real metas):

Finn from Star Wars is a predator—he’s obsessed with Rey.

Scott from Teen Wolf is a rapist—he attacked Derek.

MJ from the MCU is a fake MJ who should be replaced—her hair colour is wrong & she’s mean.

Iris from The Flash is a b*tch who should be killed off—she’s useless & whiny.

Each of these statements could be explored at length for the bad faith readings that they are, but for the purposes of this meta, let’s assume they are all correct.

What would be the implications of that?

If Finn, the first Black character with a leading role in a Star Wars film, is a sexual predator towards a white woman—a trope that has a horrific, racist history—why then is the meta using that discovery to explain why the white fave is superior, instead of a furious exposé on Disney’s racist depiction of a Black man?

If Scott, one of the few heroic Latino leads on US television, is a rapist and secretly the villain—when only 3% of all leading roles go to Latino men, as opposed to 22% of all Latino roles being related to crime—why then is the meta using that to elevate three white male faves, instead of calling MTV out for its bait and switch? Why is it not righteously angry at yet another racist depiction of a Latino character?

If Michelle, a mixed Black woman in the role of the most iconic superhero love interest of all time, is just a fake MJ and not the “real” love interest—when Black women are already relegated to less than 4% of all speaking roles in film, never mind the rarity of playing a romantic lead—why then is the meta focused on getting a “real” (white) MJ to take over her position, instead of pushing Disney to make her status as MJ as explicit as possible?

If Iris, one of the few Black women in a lead role on network television, is a b*tch who’s useless and whiny—when Black women are consistently over disciplined for being seen as louder/more disruptive than their peers—why does the meta choose to solve this by murdering Iris, instead of petitioning the writing staff to stop leaning into racist tropes?

This is only a sampling of popular metas—and only a few of the endgame conclusions that have to result—but the point is that the racism is not a bug; it’s a feature. If they were actually true, it would make the source material so reprehensible as to make supporting it unconscionable—but that’s not what they’re used for. Instead, time and time again, they’re just used to push the COC out of their own narratives.

If a meta wants to claim it cannot be racist because it’s simply restating what canon did, then it must consider whether or not that makes canon also racist. And if it does—what does it want to say about that? Is the meta going to continue that racist pattern? Call out the creators for their stereotyping? Create additional metas and fics to attempt to address the revealed problem?