#but also like early 2000s was edgelord comedy like that was always the thing

[natjennie]

I know nothing MAKES you gay obviously but in hindsight. the amount of team nice dynamite achievement hunter content I consumed 8-10 years ago certainly didn't help.

[linddzz]

lol at your tags, I've been enjoying hazbin -- and helluva boss for that matter -- too, i don't think their reputations as edgelord are that warranted (not saying you're saying that, it's just a reason I don't post about it because it seems to have A ReputationTM so I'm just enjoying it without the drama). ive seen more swearing, more sexual content, and more casual violence in other adult cartoons. one of the main reasons I enjoy them actually is I think a lot of the heart and soul of these two shows is very obviously signposted, and not hidden under miles of cynicism, but I feel like a lot of people think the narrative is edgier than it is? + alex brightman appearing in THREE roles. keith david. stephanie beatriz. it's not for edgy audiences, it's for gay theatre kids who liked gravity falls back in the day is what it is

Oh I should clarify that 9 times out of 10 if I'm calling something Edgelord it's fully affectionate and also a big touch of playful nudging at The Self that I see reflected (tbh similar to my always calling my version of Dream a freak lunatic (affectionate)).

As someone who was an Edgelord on Deviantart in the early 2000s it's like an unexpected nostalgia blast for me. It's like. My god. Some mad fucker out there committed to that style and they went and made it fucking happen. They lived the Deviantart OC dream.

I love it, it's great, I can also VERY much see how the art can turn people off if it is not their thing lmao. I guess you could also say that me calling it the Edgelord Deviantart OC Cartoon is also a bit of IRL lampshading. Why yes I can see why people call it that. but also that is all the reasons I like it.

Also yeah I have fun and love talking about it with friends but I'm a pretty casual enjoyer. It and helluvaboss are my fun demon shows with music that slaps so hard and characters I really enjoy

(also as someone who uses "fuck" very casually and often has to go back and edit out some of the Fucks in my writing, I never got the "oh they think humor is just saying Fuck." There's a lot of cursing but it just sounds like uh...the casual way I curse. The comedy of Fuck isn't the bad naughty word it's how many different things can be communicated in a simple Naughty Word. I see you, people who see the comedy in saying "fuck" too much)

[majorbaby]

as someone who has Feelings about House (I was watching it when I became disabled so oof), do spill the House takes?

Gregory House is a relic of early 2000s, vaguely Dane-Cookian, edgelord-style comedy so it's somewhat amusing to watch tumblr blorbify him. It gives me the sense that people are unaware that he's the type to unironically say, "I'm not racist, I hate all races equally". Blorbofication seems to to really rely on projecting on a character, or identifying with them, and House is a character who should be blorbofied with care. Of course you can identify with a character that makes poor choices and behaves badly while simultaneously condemning those actions IRL, but honestly, there seems to be a lot of irony-turned-sincere in the "asshole (affectionate)" sector of various fandoms these days and the push to rehabilitate House in fanwork so that he's a better person leaves me with a lot of questionmarks.

the rest of this is beneath a cut because it got super super long, sorry about that!

Here's one thing I do like about him: sometimes his unabashed assholery allowed House to do and say more progressive things than any heroic protagonist could ever say on television at the time, because radical speech is almost always an affront to the status quo. House could be pro-choice, staunchly atheist and practically allergic to any kind of traditional romantic relationship, and this was all acceptable to audiences because House is intentionally written as an asshole.

He's still an asshole though, in plenty of ways that aren't cute or excusable. The show and the character are plenty misogynist, racist, homophobic and yeah, House is disabled himself, but he's also ableist towards his patients. I'm not pointing these things out to say "don't watch this show because it's bad" but they're also unavoidable truths about the show. It's not subtle at all either, and it extends to production. House MD is famous for its wacky plotlines and doctors committing all kinds of medical malpractice or outright felonies, with the exception of Foreman who got less material because, as House would put it, "black guy". This kind of works out for Foreman because by virtue of getting much less material beyond "only sane man" or "voice of reason" or "endlessly patient with his racist boss", he's the most normal of the cast, and it made sense for him to succeed Cuddy at the end of the series. Every woman on the show exhibits saint-like patience towards him. Cuddy, Cameron and Thirteen could've collaborated to quietly murder this guy and I'd be shocked (well. would I??? this show did some truly wacky things) but I can't say I'd feel a terrible amount of sympathy.

The issue I have with a lot of the recent fic and headcanonry around the show is this "healed by love" trope that I keep seeing pop up. House's most basic traits are that he's 1) brilliant and 2) an asshole. The show asks over and over whether or not House will ever change, and the answer is always no. If he's rehabilitated, he is no longer Gregory House. Like, write what you want but why write House if he's not going to be an asshole? Or if you are going to rehabilitate him, understand that there's 8 seasons of television that deliberately, consistently portray him as being a lost cause in terms of positive character development. I've seen the claim that he's "good disabled rep" and like, on its face I agree with that. House is in pain 24/7, his brain functions differently from other people, he struggles in social interactions, he wants to be loved in spite of knowing he is hard to love, he tries to do better but he repeatedly fails. All of these experiences have a place in fiction, but rehabilitating him revokes that place.

More specific to my own blog, I've encountered a few posts comparing beejhawk to hilson and that's on its face ridiculous. Even if we disagree that Hawkeye is a good person, MASH frames him as a good person whereasHouse is a bad person who is framed as a bad person. I'm more ambiguous towards the Wilson-BJ comparison, but at least Wilson is canonically shown to possess some of the traits that are commonly assigned to BJ within fanwork. House and Hawkeye on the other hand... like Hawkeye and Wilson have more in common with one another, Wilson being compassionate and communicative towards his friends and patients, including House when House isn't being particularly likeable (there actually might be a bit of BJ in House, lol).

imo, it's part of a trend of homogenizing ship and character dynamics, molding characters/ships/settings to certain popular tropes rather than the other way around across fandoms... to what end, I have no idea. I'm of the opinion that nothing in fanfic presents any kind of real-world "risk" in comparison to mainstream media, but it seems to me that presenting all the big gay ships as being "the same", essentially inventing new gay stereotypes is something we maaaay want to move away from. Or at least ask ourselves why we do this with gay men specifically.

okay MASH/perils-of-gay-fandom tangent over. basically, House is a mediocre show, albeit with some very good acting. it offers great fodder for fanwork because the characters are all some kind of hot mess (except for Foreman), it's got plenty of sex and drugs, and despite the fact that every medical drama to ever exist has contained all of these elements setting each other off, there's still a societal expectation that doctors and nurses have their shit together. these are people who are responsible for human life, so they can't possibly be sex-having, substance-abusing, hot messes, right?