current obsession

Over the course of this season we’ve seen Ghouls’ values be completely altered by his time with Lucy. He’s begun seeing the world in a different light, he’s becoming more like Cooper—like himself—again. And it’s Lucy orchestrating this change; she’s teaching him a different way of life, helping him relearn his kindness. What’s interesting is that the opposite is also occurring here: Lucy’s become a product of the wasteland, she’s learned what it means to survive, and she’s begun fighting for herself. Where Lucy is abandoning her passivity for justice Ghoul is relinquishing his revenge plot to embark on his own pursuit of love for his family. It’s a complete 180 from who they were at the beginning of the first season.

And Lucy wants so badly for Ghoul to be selfish with her and to find a different way to get his family back that she doesn’t realize how their positions have swapped. She doesn’t realize that it’s from her doing; that, by teaching him, she’s changed him, too. They’re equally at fault though: without intending to, I think Ghoul both used her logic against her and weaponized her trust. His dishonesty and guilt are both occurring at once, making it that much harder for Lucy to reconcile with his decision.

Coop, Lucy and Maximus are all experiencing and struggling with a loss of identity. All three of them are experiencing crisis in their respective belief systems that they have been thrust into as a means to survive. We have Lucy, with her increasingly shaky logic and set of principles that is failing her in a world they were not meant for. Then, we have Maximus', whose carefully constructed idea of a Brotherhood, a collective, surmounting to a moronic thirst for violence and disregard of the individual, treating you boys as pawns in an endless war. Finally, we have Coop, who is a war vet holding on to American ideals that are failing him, and has been lost since the moment his wife suggested they drop the bomb.

It is easy to feel like you know what your morals are when you meet someone who is diametrically opposed to you. We see it with Coop and Barb, Maximus and Lucy, Lucy and Coop, Lucy and Hank.... Over and over again, we see characters defined by the ways in which they are unlike the other. This othering that creates division, a seemingly clear distinction of 'us vs them'.

It is not lost on me that Coop is so set on being alone. He believes that he will be unaffected by the world at large, the world that failed him and everyone else. That zero ties means zero complications. Lucy seeks out help in others because help was always offered and given, and it continues to backfire on her, and she is at point where she is beginning to realize as such. When Maximus lets his knight die, and when the world keeps turning, he realizes that the only thing that matters in the wasteland is that you do what you need to do in order to live.

All three of them are trying to abide by a set of values that is no longer serving them, and thus feeling at odds with their identity that was only ever an echo of who they were told to be.

These characters (as well as a swath of supporting characters) have a world that had been constructed around them against their will, a product of choices unbeknownst to them, that is in the process of falling apart. It is nuclear fallout as much as it is a falling out, as in the exploration of individuals lives being torn at the seams. How every person thinks their way is the only way, and how that quickly becomes the only way they ever know, sheltering them from the often overwhelming diversity of what it means to be human. The Vaults, the Brotherhood, even the Ghouls and every rag tag society we stumble across. People will always try to make sense of the world, build community, and seek out companionship. Our main characters are just extensions of the worlds they come from, wandering in a wasteland that has leveled the playing field - the need to survive.

The end of the world happens because of greedy, rich people who do not have to concern themselves with right or wrong and with surviving. Survival is a think piece. A hobby. A business venture. The rich prey on those with things to lose and things to fight for, all the while reaping the benefits.

Made another one. Oops.

I'm thinking about renaming the horse Peach, instead of Cherry. It fits better considering her colouring, but then again Cherry is funny precisely because it doesn't fit. But idk, gotta think.

Maybe Coop would be all in favour of ridiculous names - Dogmeat, Roosevelt, Sugarfoot - so he would go for Cherry. But Lucy would be like: no way, that's a Peach, if I ever seen one.

chapter four: "it's about to blow"

4 of 4 chapters | 12.1k words | rated E |

post season one | alternating/dual POV |

mutual pining | misunderstandings | confessions |

Current project:

Snapshots of a World on Fire

Grad student Lucy MacLean meets a charming older man in a bar after getting stood up, then reluctantly accepts a dangerous assignment from an old family friend. Both decisions will shape her life for the next two hundred and twenty years.

(This story was supposed to be like 20 chapters 😅 but I seem to be incapable of that.)

Walk The Line - Chapter 3. Great Balls of Fire

I laughed at love 'cause I thought it was funny You came along and you moved me, honey I've changed my mind, this love is fine Goodness gracious, great balls of fire

Two hundred years after the bombs dropped, Lucy MacClean lives on Shady Sands Ranch with former vault dwellers and bomb survivors. The world is healing, slowly but surely. It's up to her to become an active contributor to the well-being of her community.

When she's picked for the marriage lottery, it's met with nervousness and pride... Until the lottery ball is interrupted by The Wasteland Gang; a group of bandits run by a man only known as The Ghoul, who has problems with her father. Problems that date back to even before she was born...

To protect her family, Lucy volunteers to be a hostage to the Ghoul and his men, much to her family's horror and father's anger... But the Ghoul accepts and now Lucy is thrust into the sadistic hands of an outlaw and his world

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