The Lesbian Lorax, I Guess

A quick Dru because I was going through Dru withdrawals

and anyway i just wanted to show some support and respect for you because the people arguing about hilson to you/with you are bringing in way too much negativity. and it’s so disheartening because the hilson dynamic is so rich when looking at it from a toxic friendship perspective but apparently that’s not allowed because…idk, whatever their argument is for hilson being “canon”. it sucks because i feel like the show is so much better when looking at dynamics over ships or relationships.

also, platonic love is so important??? and i feel like on here everything has to be a ship or a romantic thing when most of the time, it’s just people showing up for each other and caring??? and the hilson dynamic is so toxic and destructive and that’s the point! it doesn’t make it bad and it doesn’t make it inherently romantic either. “oh but house says amber is the female version of him so-“ so nothing! amber is so much more than just the example to use when talking about two guys. the tragic thing about amber is that she loved wilson enough to care about house’s well-being MEANWHILE house called her a bitch like every other sentence. and wilson’s a cheating jerk in canon but whatever! i got off topic lol

my point was supposed to be about the importance of platonic love and how hilson is incredibly toxic and that’s the point. and not liking the dynamic is okay! i think if robert sean leonard wasn’t such a wonderful actor, i wouldn’t like wilson at all. but it sucks that the reason i like him is because he’s so flawed and terrible and so many people on here try to hide that.

this got long, you don’t have to answer at all, just wanted to send another perspective your way to drown out all the negativity. personally, I don’t care lol. factually speaking, hilson isn’t canon, huddy is and i don’t care for either relationship in a romantic way (unless you’re making a wonderful deep dive about huddy in which case, i mourn what could have been with better writing lol)

also also, i think if people aren’t going to listen, we should start arguing back by saying a wlw ship is canon. like cuddy/stacy or thirteen/amber. just be like “oh yeah, it’s totally canon, did you miss the one joke they made, that was absolutely subtext and it means they made out offscreen. yeah, how could you miss it, it was so obvious?”

how could i forget :) thank you for your lovely message. i appreciate it a lot !!!

so so big on the importance of platonic love thing. i think there's a desire to "prove" that hilson is a canon romantic relationship in an effort to actualize the importance of it, which i think is entirely counter-productive and more than a little bit of a misnomer. i agree with you that the (dys)functionality and intensity of their relationship is much more interesting when looking at it on a platonic level than in trying to fit it into a romantic box.

i continuously have to say that i don't hate the house/wilson friendship — indeed i find it incredibly interesting — because to not be a shipper is perceived as a hatred of the dynamic altogether, which isn't how i feel! why, to take their relationship seriously, does it have to specifically be in romantic context? why does the fandom writ large consider not shipping them as completely disregarding the relationship (or missing the point of the show)? in other words, why is the platonic (canon) reading of this relationship regarded as viewing their relationship as "lesser"? i think that's something for people to sit on and cause to reevaluate where their beliefs are rooted. but that's just my thought!

No nuance. If you don’t have a mother/are no contact etc this is not a poll for you.

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the moment you first think it:

a) about two weeks after cameron was hired, chase thinks: i like her. house hasn't taken a case that whole time, and she was getting antsy and even he was getting bored of sitting around the office, so they got to chatting. really nothing important or memorable, getting-to-know-yous, but until that point he'd thought of her as a sort of prissy temporary hire who'd last a month tops, and. actually, she's kind of funny. she's funny, and they're flirting a bit, just joking around, and she's really smart and. he's into this. he might like her. and obviously he sees it and nods at it and that's where it stops: a work flirtation is fun (a work crush is fun), but he's not interested and even less interested in the mess. no thanks. but —

b) she considers chase a work friend, of course, and that's good: good to have an ally in the office, and for six months it's just the two of them really, even more important they get along. it doesn't change after foreman gets hired — if anything, for a while it feels even more like it's just her and him, house is so focused in on foreman — but it isn't until the next summer that she thinks it. stacy's just started and house is being so aggressively awful they're all avoiding him like the plague, but one day — well, she's not proud of it, but it gets to her: house is all worked up about his ex and she's pretty sure she's over him (probably), but it stings, knowing he's not over stacy and was never like that — and foreman rolls his eyes and chase is so clearly bored but lets her vent over drinks after work, and it definitely is the vodka sodas but she thinks: wow, he's such a good friend. he's so nice. (which is definitely the alcohol talking.) and she's always known he was cute, you know, you'd have to be blind, but for a second — but it's just the drinks, she's not interested.

i think... my answer is yes and no.

ultimately both the show and its fans are influenced by the misogynistic society we live in 🫠 and i think that's the biggest contributing factor. of course the show being misogynistic in the way that it is is bad, and certainly has its ramifications (the amount of fans treating cuddy as a sexual object, or cameron as hysterical, have their starts in the text of the show), but i think the way that the fans are misogynistic is pretty different from the way the show is.

i think the main fandom invention is that the focus is never on the women, that they're inconsistent and meant to be discarded. the fandom at large excuses shoving the women into the background "because the show does it too" when it really... doesn't? the show makes a pretty clear effort to depict the women as just as important as the men, having storylines of their own and influences on the narrative. i've been told many times by fans that the show doesn't care about women, but when i watch the show myself, that simply isn't true. cameron gets so much focus in the first three seasons, season 5 is practically The Thirteen Season, seasons 3, 5, and 7 have so much focus on cuddy, masters is pretty much the main character in s7, amber is all but the same in s4. the only place where i can kinda see a problem with devaluing the female characters is s6, because it feels like cuddy and thirteen should get more to do in that season than they do, considering.

for a more specific example, i have a huge problem with how people interact with the character of amber. cherrypicking one single moment where house says she's like him and boiling her entire character down to that. to where she is defined not by herself, but by how she can represent house. the fandom uses her as "proof" that hilson is canon because amber is "female house". the fandom disengages with her character, only using her to prop up the men. the show itself is misogynistic towards amber, in its consistent degendering and degrading of her, and most importantly in fridging her. both what the show and fandom does are misogynistic, the difference is that the show itself still takes time to develop and focus on amber as a character, and never actually just uses her as "female house", it understands her as her own person. it develops her relationships. it gives us plenty of episodes where she is a huge focus. the fandom, however, completely writes her off. this is the difference to me.

because the show doesn't do that. in season one of house, cameron has more subplots and focus than anyone whose name isn't house (or foreman, which is a whole other problem with fandom): wilson and chase, fan favorites, very much included. her feelings are always centered and focused on: her growth and relationships are a major facet of the show. i've spoken about (and complained at length about) how the show focuses so much on cameron that it forgets to develop chase — not because i don't love to see her perspective but i wish we got his too — but it's fandom who hones in on chase and ignores her.

thirteen and amber likewise get the lion's share of focus and development and POV in s4/5 — to the point that kutner and taub are more or less relegated to "comic relief" or side characters. cuddy tends to stay a bit more in the background in the first couple of seasons, as she's doing her own thing and her role is somewhat different, but by season three she's also getting perspective and subplots and dedicated focus episodes: the same can be said for wilson, who barely exists in season one, but fandom treats his every move as deeply significant and cuddy's as… not. masters is, as mentioned, the main emotional focus of season seven — although thirteen has her moments, and again, foreman, chase, and taub do not. season eight, which wasn't mentioned at all, spends much of its time on park especially — another woman!

that's also not to mention stacy, whose emotional arc and character takes up all the weight of season two, even once she is gone. or, hell, dominika, who is mostly a jokey trope — mail order sex worker with a heart of gold — but is still given some focus and development of her own. almost all of house's closest relationships are in fact with women — cuddy, cameron, thirteen, stacy, dominka, amber, his dynamics with masters and park and adams — and sure, some of this is romantic, but his and cameron's relationship was close enough it was a major part of the series finale, long after any romance was long over, and his and cuddy's relationship is far more than just "love interest." (and anyway, even if it were: how is it wrong for house to have this dynamic with cuddy but not, according to fandom, with wilson?)

and sure: some of these relationships have weird or sexist undertones or messaging or moments. absolutely. house can also be homophobic or racist with wilson and foreman; it is Not a perfect show. but to suggest "fandom is responding to bad writing, writing that only exists when it's a Girl, by the way, and all the Non Girl writing isn't bad," is… laughable, even if that wasn't anon's intention. it would be a contributing factor, as they say, if fandom judged house's male relationships in the same balance, but that is simply not the case (unless it's a Black man, of course).

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if the show didn't care about women, it would not center women and their feelings and their stories and relationships with house — romantic and platonic — as much as it does. it could have reduced them to flat non-entities for house to fuck, as many other shows do. instead, when house tries to flatten cuddy or cameron, they push back. their feelings and desires and growth is highlighted and given weight.