#*including Greg*

[radioscientist]

Everyone was exceedingly unhinged this episode, which was excellent.

[wilsonsmcgillsweatshirt]

I love how Wilson is just like, involved in all of the teams' cases. You are an oncologist. Why are you sitting with the diagnostic team discussing if their patient has lupus? There's literally a scene where he just sits down with them and says, "I was lonely." I'm convinced Wilson only ever actually does his job as an oncologist when House is not available or there's a terminally ill patient to have sex with. Which is rarely

[houseswife]

you know how amber and house did shared custody of wilson & in order to avoid the polycule implications (because that’d be weird, obviously) they decided to refer to themselves as mommy and daddy. great work. that’s definitely WAY less freaky. hit the showers gang

[feralpeasures]

Oh my boyfriend is so silly when he snaps back at our boss because he doesn't want to do his job

[meilas]

if bad guy why hot

[lizluzz]

"Wind the bobbin up."

"I don't want to wind the bobbin up."

The Horne Section podcast

[kabukeo]

or if i had faith in the cross

[sojatoals]

when the malpractice and yaoi is so good that you revive a three-year-long dormant art hobby to draw your faves

[housemdork]

house md rewatch: 2x02, "autopsy"

what's worse: the kiss or house calling child cancer patients "small, bald circus freaks"?

coming back to the top of this post after i've finished writing it to apologize for the length. oh my fucking god lol.

as soon as i saw andie i was like "no shot does chase kiss the cancer patient ALREADY" but, alas, i had to endure that all over again. but the way house talks about cancer patients had me gagged even more! holy moly!

is the ordeal worth psychoanalyzing? i'm not really sure. i have some bullet points in my notes about chase having a lacking childhood, growing up too fast on account of his mother's alcoholism, etc., but, in essence, i think chase kissing andie is just...Awkward. a good, On Purpose awkward, though. it shows the extent of patient vulnerability, especially someone as young as andie, whose conceptions of growing up/adulthood exist almost entirely within hospitals. and house's retort when he forces it out of chase is so fucking funny: "this is exactly why you can't to touch my markers."

for clarity's sake, i'd say the defining theme of this episode is bravery. i like 2x02 more than 2x01 on account of its thematic clarity, and i'm mentioning this at the top because bravery informs a lot of my points going forwrad. additionally, i think i've found a sincerely wilson-forward episode, so i don't have to justify hijacking a recap with any undue wilson-posting. he's here! loud and full of oncology guilt that make his soft brown eyes even softer!

and even better - THEIR CONJOINED OFFICES HAVE ARRIVED. THE NEEDLESSLY CONJOINED OFFICES HAVE HIT PPTH. they even emphasize this new architectural development, so i wonder if we're meant to believe that this happened during the indeterminate amount of time between seasons? and for what reason? enter fan theories and headcanons, please.

sorry (not really) but i have to talk a little too much about this scene, leading first with the fact that it seems like house accumulated pebbles on their balcony to throw at wilson's window. when he reaches for them, out of our frame of view, it sounds like there's a pre-made pile there:

house really just wants an informal consult about andie, since wilson was the one to give him the case, but it devolves into something that house really only shares with wilson: domesticity.

house is bitching and moaning all episode about being sick and miserable when it's very clearly just allergies and/or a cold. he's fiddling with some vick's vapor-rub-equivalent while talking to wilson, but he can't quite get the cap off while holding his cane at the same time. because the struggle is annoying, wilson grabs the container, opens it, and hands it back.

yeah, i'm hilson-posting a bit here, but i just love the way this conversation fleshes out without missing a beat. this season does a lot of work for these 2, long before wilson moves in, and the classic house and wilson domesticity we all love so much originates in their physical proximity in their work environment. there's quite literally no reason for their offices to be next to each other.

okay anyways. the concept of andie's bravery is a point of contention between wilson and house throughout; house thinks the bravery is a farce, even a symptom, while wilson finds it noble and admirable and real. 2x02 by itself is only introducing their longstanding dialectic between faith (wilson) and nonbelief (house), a dynamic that will only grow as house becomes more and more like a god to wilson and cuddy as the show goes on.

i think wilson's insistence that andie is brave stems from his constant need for neediness (to use house's 5x04 lingo). bravery in cancer patients, especially those as young as andie, imply a constant need, as well as a model that wilson can admire - true goodness. wilson lacks for moral decency, so by devoting himself to patients who are chock full of the stuff, maybe he can do a little penance? who knew house md could be so catholic.

house's refutation of andie's bravery also speaks to a long pathology of his - refusal of failure, rejection of impossible circumstances. house can't understand why andie would even want to be brave when she knows she's going to die. again, he thinks that it's a medical issue. wilson is so offended by how house mocks andie and other child cancer patients that he tells him to "go to hell," a massively ineffective insult that i don't think future wilson would use.

looking a little deeper, though, i think house is perplexed about how someone can endure constant pain without complaint. his constant grief over his cold sparks this joke early on, but of course it's really about his leg pain. for all intents and purposes, his coping mechanism, vicodin, isn't brave, nor how he treats those around him. this is why it's so profound when he insists to andie that she doesn't have to keep fighting:

"i can't just leave her [andie's mom] behind because i'm tired."

"but you can't stay for her, either."

andie contemplates this. house isn't asking her to be selfish here - he's actually advocating for more recent oncology practices, which prioritize palliative care in terminal patients. house's difficulty in understanding andie's eventual decision to go through a highly dangerous procedure reminds us of the tragedy of his infarction; in 1x21, we saw him confirm to stacy that he would give up his leg to save her, but now he can barely understand why andie would do something similar for her mother in the face of certain death.

house has confirmedly lost that connection to unconditional love, at least for the most part (more on this in the sequestered spoiler section at the bottom of this post).

andie's departure from the hospital is one of the most emotional moments for me in the show, and wilson is right to be angry with house when he (at first) refuses to say goodbye. wilson highlights the contrast between how house lives his life (literally cutting up an antihistamine and [probably] vicodin before his eyes) and how andie lives her: "she could outlive you."

house doesn't feel like he has anyone to live for at this point, and i think that this revelation is what motivates him in the end to say goodbye to andie. she challenges him by telling him to go for a walk, "it's nice outside," and house's response introduces yet another fav motif of mine in the show. HOUSE'S MOTORCYCLE!

house values independence in life, as well as isolation, so he takes andie's challenge and warps it by test-driving (for now) a motorcycle. i like how the test-drive implies impermanence and a fear of commitment, and i also like how motorcycles become an embodiment of agency for house (more on this in the bottom portion of this post, too, actually).

returning to andie's dangerous procedure, one of the episode's strongest moments, fleeting as it is, is how house shows absolute trust in foreman at the pivotal procedure moment. they have only seconds to confirm whether there's a tumor in andie's brain before she's lost to them, and something catches foreman's eye at the very last moment. while the other surgeons are hesitant, in the face of foreman's confidence and expertise, house says, "that's good enough for me."

THIS IS SO HUGE. this is the clearest moment of blanket-trust between house and the fellows that i can remember thus far. house is not only rewarding foreman for being certain, but also for standing up to so many other voices. and it's a success! i think this is especially powerful coming after their bout about the death row patient in the previous episode; despite wilson's claims that house admires nobody, clearly he has starry eyes for foreman here.

EXPLICIT SERIES FINALE SPOILERS BELOW:

-

-

-

in so many ways, this episode feels like pregaming 8x22, probably because house md's messaging about cancer stays alarmingly consistent across its run. maybe i should make a separate post about that. andie and house's conversation is reflected in the inverse in 8x21 when house cannot accept that wilson wants to die. he won't tell wilson that he loves him unless he "fights." he is frustrated that wilson isn't being brave, in his eyes. he's begging him to be an andie, when house claimed that that was unfair and unwise way back when in season 2.

it's the line "but i can change" that teaches him the real lesson - there is bravery in wilson taking agency, even if it's only over how he dies (a callback to 2x01!). and there is someone who house can live for, stepping into andie's shoes. the choice for them to both ride motorcycles, two confirmed symbols of freedom in house md, together, keeping pace, is just too coincidental not to point out. like house, i, too, hate coincidences.

[nerdyblog8]

THIS TOOK TWO HOURS

[Also. Maybe go check out the Fic I wrote using this head cannon. If you wanted.]

[greghatecrimes]

Okay. Proper, healthy parents would never have let their sixteen year old know that they were traumatized by something- no matter WHAT it is their kid did- and had to "get over it". Much less drag that out for YEARS.

She was a child.

As @x-birdsong-x says: "you cannot tell your kid that She Did A Bad Thing that It Was All Her Fault that You Can't Believe She Did That that She Was Always The Problem There that She Caused All That Trouble to the point she believes it so strongly to the point she carries so much guilt so much desperation for absolution that when a kid who did the same thing who is the same age she was shows up, she spends every second of it making everything worse by going This Is How It Has To Be This Is What You Need To Do Next".

[tomwambsgans]

tom & greg + fixation on, and fear of, sexual assault

of all the characters involved in a plot centered around a sexual exploitation scandal, it's ironically not any women but tom and greg - the very characters through whom we're introduced to the exploitation - who show repeated concern for their own bodily autonomy, particularly on a sexual vein. that particular point of irony serves to exemplify their outsider statuses that remain in spite of promotions, marriages, etc, but also, these aspects of their characters being so consistent tells us a lot about their relationship to the entire culture of masculinity, not just waystar.

greg in particular is practically introduced with a fixation on sexual assault. his character in general is a notably un-sexual being up until the end of season 3, with the only allusions he makes to sex until then being a matter of himself as a victim. that fixation/fear becomes most apparent when the notion of prison comes up - and it is clearly the chief worry driving that fear for greg. in contrast, tom does have other repeatedly expressed worries about prison: non-sexual autonomy lost, a lack of comfort, a lack of Finer Things, particularly food and wine... but (implicitly non-consensual) sex makes the list and is also brought up multiple times, interestingly with less apparent fear than greg's. this may be due to tom already having a pragmatic relationship with (heterosexual) sex that allows him to plow through a series of sexual encounters that are tainted with elements of Wrongness - the idea here being that a fear of sex is just kind of normal for tom, so he's used to it. he has a very high tolerance for pain and physical discomfort. it's less losing autonomy and more acknowledging he barely has any to begin with. he's less panicked, more resigned. perhaps even less of a victim and more of a... coerced participant, because to even conceptualize himself as a victim would be too vulnerable. one more character does allude to being victimized by sexual assault, meanwhile - roman. where he contrasts with both tom and greg, though, is that rather than fearing it happening in the future, there's instead the idea of it having happened in the past. there may or may not have been any actual event or even a theme of sexual abuse in roman's childhood, but we get multiple notions: roman jokingly threatening to accuse connor of "diddling" him, the vibes that float around the dog pound story and how he "went weird," "yeah they raped me a little," his inability to pee around other men and the implication he's seen a therapist for it... and of course, this:

which is where roman's relationship with all of this contrasts the most starkly with tom and greg's: whether he's truly a victim or not (and if he wasn't, he clearly does at least cling to the notion as a potentially easy explanation for all that's wrong with him), he turns around and starts weilding the idea himself. furthermore he communicates, in that particular deleted scene, his knowingness of something between tom and greg. and he reinforces the idea that there's something wrong with it. the scenario he evokes, where greg is a Victim and tom is a Perpetrator, isn't accurate whatsoever, but it sends a message, implants an idea, sets the tone, etc - sex between men will always include those two characters. this is, undeniably, the precise reason for both tom and greg's fixations on being a sexual victim of other men. the canonical fixation in and of itself, and its uniqueness to the two of them, may as well establish this - in the gender theory of the show (and also real life), tom and greg are of a different gender class than Real Man. they are adjacent to women. to be frank with you, they are faggots. both know on some level that intimacy with men is what they want, and therefore, however consciously, have that sense of their role in the world being a vulnerable one. there are elements of both fear and fantasy, building off of each other: "this is inevitable because of what i am" and "what if i enjoy it, what does that say about who i am?" and "if i have no choice in the matter, then maybe i'm free to enjoy it." there's a loop of freedom from contending with one's own desires -> a hyperawareness of them. now, roman may join tom and greg in being Categorically Less Of A Man, but he still sits above them on the axis of class and therefore doesn't feel the same ramifications. tom and greg are not only gay but live far more directly in the Real World, with origins in the present and physical homophobia of the middle and lower classes. tom also knows the corporate homophobia from climbing his way up and gives greg the crash course. tom and greg's differences wrt their fears of SA lie in self-awareness, self-hatred, and how successfully each of them have already carved out a space for themselves in the sexual hierarchy. but ultimately what they have in common is the most significant: their inability to fit authentically into the world of the roys. their shared uniqueness, amongst the elite, in having a body - one that can and often does experience pleasure and pain. in having real desires and therefore being vulnerable. in being gay little nudie turtles underneath.

[wprostvii]

first time studying anatomy + tried a new colouring technique

[blondie-drawings]

[theoreticallyliving]

My Rose Quartz au is finally here!!!

i really wanted it to be Vern/Brent but i think it'd have to be Vern/Nick solely for characterization purposes

...Brent can play the role of Pearl

Sophist will have his own defined role

obv they won't be gems, but archetype wise

pretty long post under the cut lol, be warned!

so for Vern i imagine that he's like an angel prince of sorts, and Brent is like a knight/bodyguard to him. I like to imagine that the angels only recently (past couple hundred years) discovered Earth (the angel world is not heaven, the angels are born angels). as they observe it and the creatures that live on it, Vernias falls in love with the life on the planet, especially humans. he finds them so fascinating, and Brent, the simp that i've decided he is, takes him down to a small village for his birthday :3

they find a demon there, Eevee, who was sent up to earth to cause chaos but was lowkey uninformed and thought he was completely fired & banished from [underworld]. when Brent and Vern meet him at first, they're shocked because this doesn't really look like a human? they did research and this is new?? there's probably a small bit about the fact that there's ANOTHER new world, but that's not that important so i'm not gonna dwell on that. after their short adventure on earth, they head back up to the angel world (side note, i need a name for this place i have literally no ideas for it)

The rest of the royals/council/whatevers are PISSED, and Vern is in huge trouble for ditching his princely duties. he would be banned from leaving the castle, and be under constant surveillance. they also question Brent about this, and find that Vern's attachment to him can potentially be used as a threat, a future punishment. if he runs off again, Brent will be replaced.

this is sort of the start of the first major character arc Vernias would have, where he realizes that the way he's being treated is toxic, verging on abusive. he later has some sort of argument with like the king or wtv, and while pleading his case to just be let down to earth every once in a while, it evolves into him getting his title revoked and being exiled from the kingdom/castle/i need to do more world building so that i understand what it would mean to be exiled. this is sort of Patroclus in The Song of Achilles vibes in this small moment, but also Grian in Watcher lore? because rather than faking his death he's discarded?? idk

Brent goes with him, obviously, and they decide to go back to earth. they find Sophist again, and they basically adopt him into their makeshift family :3 and they move into a beach house together! Vern and Brent have no concept of "money" or "bills" but Sophist knows capitalism and is technically a millionaire (haha capitalism evil it's so subtle guys) so they straight up don't have to think about it lol

Vernias, while exploring their cute little town by himself, meets Nick! he's still gonna be a musician because this is almost fully inspired by the song What Can I do for You? but before that, Vernias brings Nick back to the house and introduces him to the boys, and around this is when we have BRENT JEALOUSY ARC JUMPSCARE 💥💥💥 where we see a lot of the competitive nature of Brent and Nick's relationship, but it's morphed to be really toxic rather than their more lighthearted competition that they have irl

that's sort of happening more in the background, while in the forefront of this we watch how Vern and Nick's relationship grows. Nick introduces him to a bunch of cute little restaurants and cafes and carnivals and stuff like that, basically showing him a bunch of earth customs (he's taking him on datesss) :3 i think he would also often play songs for him, like he plays guitar like Greg does in SU, so sometimes he'll just play him little love songs (this gives me an excuse to make a playlist hehehe)

and then we get to the What Can I Do For You moments!!! it plays out how it does in the actual song, except instead of fusing, Brent and Vern do some fancy air choreography or smth idk

and then ofc we have Nick realizing that, wait, Vern doesn't take him or their relationship seriously (ie. "i like the way human being play, i like playing along") and he confides in Eevee about this, who is probably not very helpful about it, but idk cuz at this point i don't know what Nick would do about this but it would be something dramatic i think

anyways then Vern has his second(?) character arc where he realizes humans are more complicated creatures than he thought, and they have a probably really fuckin long conversation about how their relationship would progress

they live happily ever after but i'm still working out exactly how it's going to happen, but yeah! that's the jist of my au, lemme know what y'all think!!

so sorry again for long post, it will probably happen again 😔

[eternal-confusion-of-han]