Boonecade is overrated, and here's why
This pairing caught my attention because it’s the most popular ship in the fandom that doesn’t involve the Courier (though that’s only true on AO3). People usually ship the Courier with companions, characters with whom the player builds relationships over the course of the game and helps with personal issues, so the popularity of such pairings is no surprise. And even if you don’t ship the Courier with a companion, it’s not a problem, because the Courier is a blank slate character whose entire personality and backstory can be tailored to fit just about any ship.
And then, among all these, there’s Boone / Arcade. Out of all the characters in the fandom, this one gets the spotlight. Why? For what reasons? For good ones? Personally, I think it’s for bad reasons, and here’s why.
1) Lack of interaction in canon.
Let’s start with the simplest and most obvious point. They have no interaction in canon: not in minor lines, not in endings. And as far as I know, no such interaction was ever planned (at least I haven’t seen it in cut content). The closest you can get is if you send both of them to the Lucky 38 suite, they might stand near each other and breathe the same air for a while.
2) They have little in common.
Personally, I don’t think the first point is necessarily fatal for a ship. After all, characters can have unusual similarities or unique narrative parallels that make the pairing interesting (though, in my experience, not very popular). But that’s far from the case here.
“They both have a scary secret, and because of it, they push people away.”
Yes, but the secrets are of a different kind. Arcade hides that his father served the Enclave, an organization that attempted to commit genocide, while Boone isn’t keen on talking about his involvement in the Bitter Springs massacre. This makes their situations and internal conflicts fundamentally different.
“They both hate the Legion.”
Yes, like most wastelanders. You could even crudely say that in the Mojave, there are two types of people: those who hate the Legion, and Legionaries themselves. And they hate it for different reasons (aside from the obvious ones, like the Legion kills, enslaves people, etc.). Boone has a personal hatred for the Legion because his wife was kidnapped and made a slave. Arcade, on the other hand, as a staunch anti-authoritarian and idealist, hates the Legion for ideological reasons. Plus, given that Caesar was a Follower of the Apocalypse before founding the Legion, Arcade may hate him as a traitor to the Followers’ ideals.
In short, upon closer inspection, the carriage turns back into a pumpkin, as I said above, their similarities are few and superficial.
3) On compatibility.
This point is more subjective, but there are a few things I want to address.
From Boone’s dialogue, it becomes clear that despite his unsociability, he’s still drawn to talkative people. And shippers of this pairing will surely exclaim: “See! They’re perfect for each other!” But there’s a catch. To earn extra trust points with Arcade, you can pass an Intelligence check (“I don't think either of us can fully understand what he and the tribes have gone through.”) after talking to Caesar and get two points instead of one. This may seem minor at first glance, but it shows: Arcade enjoys talking to people who can hold a conversation. I seriously doubt Arcade would find Boone interesting, since Boone likes chatty people precisely because he himself has nothing to say.
4) They are potentially very toxic.
Let me say right away that I don't consider toxicity a necessary flaw in a pairing, and I understand that some shippers may love it for that very reason. However, most people (in my experience, of course) see it as potential fluff, not angst, which I personally find quite amusing.
In the best endings for Boone, he either continues to mourn his wife, returns to the army with no desire to do anything to prevent a possible second Bitter Springs massacre, or becomes an amoral mercenary. Boone makes no attempt to change in canon. Why should we expect Arcade to have any positive influence on him? Arcade will likely suffer as his efforts fizzle out. Many consider the typical female "I can fix him" mentality to be unhealthy and dangerous, so why should we make exceptions in this case?
From all of the above, it can be confidently said that Boone / Arcade is popular not because of chemistry between the characters, similarities, or compatibility, but simply out of sheer desperation and the standard thirst for slash. Yes, this pairing is bad, but what alternatives are there? You could ship Arcade with Alex Richards or Thomas Anderson, but they’re very minor characters. If you’re a little fan of extremism, you could ship him with Caesar, but Caesar is a sick (in every sense) and brutal dictator, so that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Boone’s situation is even sadder. The only male character Boone is close to is Manny Vargas, but their friendship is highly questionable, and Manny is also a background character. As for the companions: Raul is an old, smelly ghoul, while Cass and Veronica are, well, women.
The typical slash fan simply has no choice, and that doesn’t exactly reflect well on the pairing.