jade

cameron:

developed a crush on house in s1 after several moments of him reaching out to her with genuine empathy and care, her realizing they were similarly damaged drawing her to him.

cameron then spent some time idolizing and idealizing house as a heroic figure who always does what’s right, who she specifically understands; i do think there was an element of ego here, she liked being the one who “got” house, who he cared about. cameron’s self worth isn’t that high which we don’t talk about much.

however, after their date? like, look at that date. house doesn’t just reject her; house is pretty cruel. he tells her she’s incapable of love and a selfish fuckup. and...

by honeymoon, cameron is speculating that maybe house just isn't capable of love, period. when she realizes this isn't true and he definitely feels a way about stacy, cameron gives up entirely. ("I thought you were too screwed up to love anyone. I was wrong.") cameron never shows a serious interest in house ever again.

she kicks off s2 with a noticeable crush on sebastian charles in tb or not tb. a few weeks later, she hooks up with chase. in s3's meaning, house asks her out, and she stammers and tells him it's not a good idea since they work together -- something that never bothered her before, and will not bother her with chase; house is correct that cameron is just looking for an out because she's not interested! then cameron gets involved with chase, and, watch this space for that essay, but again she acts VERY differently with chase than house. she's proactive. she pursues him. she quits her job -- literally doesn't want to work for house anymore if chase isn't around.

she does kiss house in half wit, but this never goes anywhere. chase speculates she wants to make house jealous, but there simply is no evidence of this: she's even more flirty with chase when house is stuck on an airplane, she's furious at the idea that house wants them to break up in fetal position (shouldn't she be happy house is interfering and be overanalyzing it as a sign of interest?).

in season four, cameron admits that she misses the rush and puzzles of diagnostics, and has some trouble letting go. she always emphasizes that she doesn't miss house, and whenever he offers her a job back or accuses her of trying to come back, she ignores him.

by season five, cameron avoiding chase to linger in diagnostics is weird and out of character enough that everyone is worried about it, like, it's considered alarmingly unusual for cameron to be hanging around house.

by season six, thirteen and house actually make a note of the fact that cameron hasn't visited him or checked in one since he got out of mayfield; she truly just doesn't give a fuck anymore, and by teamwork she's so furious at house's games that she leaves princeton forever.

there is a clear progression here, and it's not a good one for house. cameron goes through six years of giving less and less of a shit about him: she is largely over him by s2, completely done by s3, and utterly apathetic by s5. i'm sure chase and that relationship is part of it -- she has other things going on -- but i'm really not sure things would be different if she hadn't gotten involved: cameron was single in s2 and most of s3, and also showed no interest.

but house, on the other hand???

was Clearly Interested in cameron in s1, both as a mystery/puzzle but also as a person. he asked her on the monster truck date; he kept reaching out to her and was gentle with her in a way he wasn't anyone else. he got her a christmas present. i don't think house wanted to date her, like, he wasn't at all emotionally ready/capable of a relationship, but he was interested. literally everyone from chase to wilson notices it.

their date goes terribly, because cameron pushes him too hard and house lashes out. as mentioned, cameron starts to get over house after this. but house?

he continues to do his s1 thing with her. he keeps reminding her that she likes him/is "supposed" to like him ("why can't you be like the other girls who have a thing for me" "when you reach puberty, give me a call," so many comments), bragging about her crush on him ("i could have hit that"), and in other ways treating the idea of cameron liking him as a given.

he spends literally all of no reason imagining her pining, imagining them with sexual tension, imagining undressing her and having metaphorical sex with her.

he also keeps... i don't know how to phrase it, having little Moments? he wants to sit right next to her in lines in the sand and thinks she has 'pretty hair' when he's high. he ogles her in all in. house is pretty openly attracted to cameron and does not hide it.

he also! god, this drives me crazy. house likes her. yes, he finds her annoying sometimes. but how fucking often does house take her advice? go to her for her take and then do it? he tries to get her to help fix his relationship with wilson in dying changes everything. he hangs out in the er. he seeks cameron out. he gets into moral debates with her that he instigates. when cuddy isn't available, he plays games with cameron (the flat screen tv debacle of s4, etc). house is almost always the one instigating these things; cameron rarely does.

house doesn't just tolerate that kiss in half wit. he kisses back with enthusiasm. compare hunting. when cameron abruptly kisses chase, he kisses back for a second before pulling away and questioning the situation; she has to convince him to roll with it before he kisses her again. house has no qualms, he is all about making out with her.

house doesn't show any jealousy over chase, contrary to chase's suspicions, but he does continue to fixate on cameron. he invites her back to diagnostics so many times after she leaves, offers to fire someone for her, continues to joke about her crush on him and them in a relationship. compare the number of times he offers chase a job again (zero). in season six, he even assumes the only reason cameron, a department head, isn't working for him is chase, that if she and chase split up she would fall back into his (office's) arms. this is silly to the point of delusional. "you only quit because of chase," he tells her, which is true, but not in the way he is implying: chase didn't ask or require her to quit her job to date him, you know?

hallucination amber even talks about this: house is worried he almost killed chase because he's jealous of cameron being with chase. like, that's his first thought: not "do i want chase dead" but "do i want cameron for myself?" he/his subconscious decide no, not really, but amber does point out that he is into the idea of cameron liking him. to the point that house spends years imagining her as pining.

he's also not over it by season eight. cameron is part of house's gallery of regrets in the finale: he ranks her as a loss equal to kutner, amber, and stacy. cameron isn't dead! cameron is doing fine with her life! but to house, again, he imagines her as... vengeful, as someone he lost or failed, as someone intrinsic to him, despite the real cameron having moved on years ago.

and i don't actually think he ships them: house doesn't care that much lol. but i think it actually is another sign of house's care and regard for cameron: they are very alike in this way (fear of emotional vulnerability), and he wants cameron to be able to... do what house cannot. cameron does act very differently in her feelings for chase than she did house; house encourages it. not because he really cares about the relationship in itself, but because he cares about cameron. he's invested in her.

and nowhere do we see that more with cameron, who house always misjudges.

we see this as soon as the pilot, and it's a thread in s1: house immediately catches on to cameron's damage, and starts trying to guess what it is. he assumes death, and loss, and he's right, but he assumes cameron has been the victim of something tragic, and the answer is closer to: cameron put herself in this position, knowingly, out of love.

when she develops feelings for him, house gets it wrong again. he doesn't understand why she likes him, and lashes out on their date, telling her that actually not only does she not like him but she is incapable of love and only cares about fixing broken people. fandom takes this as law, but i cannot stress enough how often the show and cameron explicitly says this is not the case: she never tried to fix house in s1, but responded to him reaching out and being kind/empathetic/protective of her (promising not to "crush her", buying her a christmas present, emphasizing with her dead husband). not once do we ever see her try or want to fix house: on the contrary, cameron alone in s1 believes house is fine as he is, and even doubts his addiction.

(we learn, too, in s1-3, that cameron is actually consistently miserable around dying people, driving herself into obsession and burnout and depression out of desperation to help: she is not, contrary to house's self-loathing claims, at all enjoying this.)

by no reason, it's even more explicit: house spends the episode imagining cameron besotted with him, sitting at his bedside, unable to so much as touch him without longing. it isn't to say that she doesn't care or wouldn't visit him in the hospital -- she certainly would -- but the exaggeration is intentional: house imagines cameron this way. by the end of s2, cameron is largely over house, but in house's mind, she's madly in love with him and his damage. (something confirmed in the tail end of season five, at that, with hallucination amber musing that house has no interest in cameron, but is interested in her being into him. we know he's susceptible to this kind of flattery: see also aly the teenage stalker.)

house spends much of season four and five insistent that cameron misses him and wants to return to diagnostics; that she isn't interested in chase because chase isn't damaged enough to fix. in saviors, house triumphantly assumes cameron wants to dump chase, and is shocked into silence when she says it's actually that she wants to marry him but is scared: by season six and teamwork it all comes to a bitter head, with house assuming that a) cameron is incapable of forgiving chase for dibala and b) that cameron will dump chase to return to diagnostics. that none of this makes any sense is probably the point: it's cynical to the point of being nonsensical, but very, very house. love doesn't win, love is fake, everything will return to the status quo. that cameron in fact tries to prioritize saving her marriage and leaving house entirely, and that she follows through, even if chase buys house's cynicism, completely blindsides house. he thought he understood cameron. he never did.

and you could certainly read this in a shipping light. house is a bit obsessed with cameron, and very much wants her to be in love with him, whether he feels the same or doesn't, whether it's an ego thing or a comfort thing. but i don't think that's the point, or not the entire point.

in everybody dies, house hallucinates cameron along with stacy, kutner, and amber. he includes her among his list of biggest regrets, the people he lost and failed to save and failed. this is telling, as cameron doesn't really belong in this group: she is alive and happy, she never dated or had her heart broken by house. but house imagines her on the same level as amber. his biggest regret and a source of incredible grief. and he imagines cameron as cruel. that she wants him to die, that he should give up and it would be a mercy.

let's be clear: this is not cameron. not just in the sense of it being a hallucination: we know cameron will drive herself into spirals trying to keep people alive, will lie and avoid and run test after test and do anything but let them be terminal. that she did help one terminal patient commit suicide and that it destroyed her. cameron does not believe that "allowing someone to die is loving." she has said the literal opposite many times.

house is wrong. that's the point.

house doesn't understand cameron, the same way he's never understood people who are genuinely kind or selfless or devoted. he claims that everybody lies, but many of the lies he so smugly uncovers aren't really hiding cruelty or apathy: sure, the honest mother hasn't told her daughter she's adopted, but that doesn't make her a bad or unloving mother. the nice guy really is that nice; the special needs teacher did have brain damage making her abnormally patient, but when that's fixed, she still loves and cares about her students the same as before. house assumes cameron has cynical motives, that she is selfish, that she doesn't love but gets off on fixing people, because that's what he believes (and because it conveniently means her feelings for him aren't real and he can reject them). house assumes cameron wants to leave chase and return to him, because that confirms house's biases and desires.

that cameron truly is a loving, caring person -- if also a flawed one, if also stubborn and pushy and messed up -- cannot be true, because it means that she is sincere. and sincerity is perhaps house's greatest weakness. he thinks it's pathetic, he finds it frightening. and so he assigns her additional motives, he imagines her as selfish and cynical and enabling, even when she tells and shows him otherwise.

and nowhere do we see that more with cameron, who house always misjudges.

we see this as soon as the pilot, and it's a thread in s1: house immediately catches on to cameron's damage, and starts trying to guess what it is. he assumes death, and loss, and he's right, but he assumes cameron has been the victim of something tragic, and the answer is closer to: cameron put herself in this position, knowingly, out of love.

when she develops feelings for him, house gets it wrong again. he doesn't understand why she likes him, and lashes out on their date, telling her that actually not only does she not like him but she is incapable of love and only cares about fixing broken people. fandom takes this as law, but i cannot stress enough how often the show and cameron explicitly says this is not the case: she never tried to fix house in s1, but responded to him reaching out and being kind/empathetic/protective of her (promising not to "crush her", buying her a christmas present, emphasizing with her dead husband). not once do we ever see her try or want to fix house: on the contrary, cameron alone in s1 believes house is fine as he is, and even doubts his addiction.

(we learn, too, in s1-3, that cameron is actually consistently miserable around dying people, driving herself into obsession and burnout and depression out of desperation to help: she is not, contrary to house's self-loathing claims, at all enjoying this.)

by no reason, it's even more explicit: house spends the episode imagining cameron besotted with him, sitting at his bedside, unable to so much as touch him without longing. it isn't to say that she doesn't care or wouldn't visit him in the hospital -- she certainly would -- but the exaggeration is intentional: house imagines cameron this way. by the end of s2, cameron is largely over house, but in house's mind, she's madly in love with him and his damage. (something confirmed in the tail end of season five, at that, with hallucination amber musing that house has no interest in cameron, but is interested in her being into him. we know he's susceptible to this kind of flattery: see also aly the teenage stalker.)

house spends much of season four and five insistent that cameron misses him and wants to return to diagnostics; that she isn't interested in chase because chase isn't damaged enough to fix. in saviors, house triumphantly assumes cameron wants to dump chase, and is shocked into silence when she says it's actually that she wants to marry him but is scared: by season six and teamwork it all comes to a bitter head, with house assuming that a) cameron is incapable of forgiving chase for dibala and b) that cameron will dump chase to return to diagnostics. that none of this makes any sense is probably the point: it's cynical to the point of being nonsensical, but very, very house. love doesn't win, love is fake, everything will return to the status quo. that cameron in fact tries to prioritize saving her marriage and leaving house entirely, and that she follows through, even if chase buys house's cynicism, completely blindsides house. he thought he understood cameron. he never did.

and you could certainly read this in a shipping light. house is a bit obsessed with cameron, and very much wants her to be in love with him, whether he feels the same or doesn't, whether it's an ego thing or a comfort thing. but i don't think that's the point, or not the entire point.

in everybody dies, house hallucinates cameron along with stacy, kutner, and amber. he includes her among his list of biggest regrets, the people he lost and failed to save and failed. this is telling, as cameron doesn't really belong in this group: she is alive and happy, she never dated or had her heart broken by house. but house imagines her on the same level as amber. his biggest regret and a source of incredible grief. and he imagines cameron as cruel. that she wants him to die, that he should give up and it would be a mercy.

let's be clear: this is not cameron. not just in the sense of it being a hallucination: we know cameron will drive herself into spirals trying to keep people alive, will lie and avoid and run test after test and do anything but let them be terminal. that she did help one terminal patient commit suicide and that it destroyed her. cameron does not believe that "allowing someone to die is loving." she has said the literal opposite many times.

house is wrong. that's the point.

house doesn't understand cameron, the same way he's never understood people who are genuinely kind or selfless or devoted. he claims that everybody lies, but many of the lies he so smugly uncovers aren't really hiding cruelty or apathy: sure, the honest mother hasn't told her daughter she's adopted, but that doesn't make her a bad or unloving mother. the nice guy really is that nice; the special needs teacher did have brain damage making her abnormally patient, but when that's fixed, she still loves and cares about her students the same as before. house assumes cameron has cynical motives, that she is selfish, that she doesn't love but gets off on fixing people, because that's what he believes (and because it conveniently means her feelings for him aren't real and he can reject them). house assumes cameron wants to leave chase and return to him, because that confirms house's biases and desires.

that cameron truly is a loving, caring person -- if also a flawed one, if also stubborn and pushy and messed up -- cannot be true, because it means that she is sincere. and sincerity is perhaps house's greatest weakness. he thinks it's pathetic, he finds it frightening. and so he assigns her additional motives, he imagines her as selfish and cynical and enabling, even when she tells and shows him otherwise.

Alessandro Pianon, Pulcini bird sculptures.  Mid-20th-century, Italian, Murano glass.

Alessandro Pianon (1931-1984) was born in Venice.  After his studies at the Architecture School, he joined Vetreria Vistosi in 1956. He was supposed to create a new logo for the family-owned enterprise.  One thing led to another, showing that Pianon had a great talent for designing glass.  He designed numerous vases, bottles and lamps for Vistosi, including an outstanding series of birds ( « Pulcini »), in 1962.