Junebug

Baran Al-Hashimi:

Hated by many fans for calling out the main character (Dr Robby) when he's being unkind to staff and patients

Dr Al Hashimi my beloved!!! She shows up in s2 as the person who’ll be taking over running the emergency department while the previous head (Robby, a white man) goes on sabbatical. While the Pitt intentionally tries to portray complicated characters who have both high and low points, people were going “oh she’s the villain I guess” from minute one (Spoiler: she’s not. She’s just a lady who wants to do her job) Like I usually stay out of the Pitt tags bc there’s so many bad takes there and I still saw so much “oh she needs to get taken down a peg, she’s going to have a horrific screw up to prove Robby is right about everything, she’s eeeeevil and wants to take over the ED forever” type shit And she is a very cool and complex character! She’s always watching out for people in vulnerable positions, which includes both her patients and her subordinates; she’s largely a rule follower for better and worse; she’s a very good doctor; she has a really interesting plot wrt her seizure disorder I Just Think She’s Neat

First of all. I love her. I love her SO MUCH. Second of all let's think about how her day went: she spent months preparing for a new job as an ED head, came up with proposals, emailed current ED head to try and get his take on the proposals and see if they would work since she's never been head of an ED before. He does not read the emails. He does not get back to her. She comes in early on her first day with bagels and to run a practice code to see where the med students are at and get a feel for the place. She politely but firmly guides everyone. She doesn't play favorites and is interested in both patient care and making sure her staff can have a life outside of work. She can do a procedure to save a child's life that nobody else in the ED has even heard of. She worked with MSF (Drs without borders) at a maternity ward in Kabul. (It is implied she witnessed a massacre there). Throughout all this, Dr Robby (WHO IS CHOOSING TO GO ON SABBATICAL! did he just not want anyone running the dept while he was gone??) belittles her, ignores her, doesn't want to discuss suggestions, leaves out crucial information about one of the residents having a history of stealing meds from the dept, tells her TO HER FACE he thinks the place will fall apart without him, literally makes her cry, and she handles it with grace. But SO MANY people in the fandom are like "wow she's a bitch" or "ugh she's pro AI" (first of all, it's a transcription service so that's on the writers for calling it AI, second of all fan favorite Dr Robby goes on an emotional rampage and yells at a resident having a panic attack and he's still beloved but God forbid she have a flaw) (which comes from a place of wanting her patients to be seen more quickly and her staff to spend less time charting and more time at home! I'm not pro AI but it's not like she's just being lazy!) Dr Al Hashimi is better than me because if I went through all that on my FIRST DAY of work I would go after Dr Robby with a scalpel. And instead she continues to treat him with respect even when she openly acknowledges he is treating her like a resident, not a fellow attending.

Al-Hashimi propaganda (spoilers ahead): in season 1, a male doctor steals drugs from the ED. A female doctor reports him to the ED chief (also male) and, rather than report him to admin, the chief covers it up. Season 2 begins with the guy returning from rehab. Not knowing the full story, Al-Hashimi is supportive of him and his decision to get help. She asks about his tension with the woman who reported him and he says she doesn’t like him because he was a dick to her (he was and still is in season 2). He makes it sound like she has a petty grudge against him and he’s the bigger person. Al-Hashimi is angry upon finding out the truth and treats him differently (i.e. doesn’t let him talk over students and the like, but she’s not a raging asshole). I can’t stress enough how she’s still cordial and appropriate with him, she’s just acting in light of new information. She knows he stole drugs, got away with it, and lied to her which made the woman who reported him look bad. This made her the devil incarnate to his fans. They woobified him and acted like he was an innocent victim in all this. They called her an ableist addict hater (mind you she’s disabled and was kind about his addiction). People were loud and vile about it and I’m sure that if she was the white man and he was the brown woman it would’ve been crickets.

Amber Volakis:

People simulateously dismiss her relationship with Wilson and make it her whole character. They also take her competitiveness from a competition and assume it applies to her in all aspects of her life. For someone who had a major impact on the show she's often ignored.

Amber Volakis propaganda because everyone does my girl SO dirty: - Her nickname that almost everyone in the show calls her to her face every day is Cutthroat Bitch. - When she & Wilson start dating there are so so so many jokes about her keeping his balls in her purse & having him whipped & etc etc just bc she’s assertive & confident. - It is openly discussed in canon how she is basically House in a skirt, but canon & fanon both crucify her for things that barely rate a mention when House does the same or worse. - & then the whole two-part episode where they fridge her (which is. not quite House’s fault directly but he definitely contributed to it) they make it completely about House & Wilson, & maybe 2% about her. She’s not even in the first half of the two-part finale centered around her death, & she’s only conscious for the last maybe ten minutes of the second half. - After being fridged, she does show up in later seasons! As a hallucination. She shows back up to be the devil on House’s shoulder when he is hurtling towards a vicodin-induced breakdown. Literally only shows up to steer him into making bad decisions (including almost killing Chase (allergic to strawberries) by inviting him to a party where the stripper is wearing strawberry scented lotion that sends him into anaphylaxis) I know she is probably going to lose to Al-Hashimi because the Pitt is a more recent show, & from what I’ve seen Al-Hashimi also gets treated horribly by the fans, but my god. free my girl Amber 😭😭😭 she did all of that & she was right