Ridiculousness that may give you a moment's respite from whatever you're concerned about

[deelaundry]

I wish fans wouldn't use a slash between two people's names when indicating a platonic relationship.

"House/Rachel" to me indicates Taub's wife is cheating on him with House.

But a lot of people use it when referring to House interacting with Cuddy's daughter.

Trivial, I know, but... Ah well.

By the by, Rachel's "Jokes!" was the line of the episode. It was perfectly delivered, and such a great way for Rachel to indicate she's siding with her mom if House tries to say anything silly about Cuddy.

Comments

[felis-nocturna.livejournal.com]

"House/Rachel" to me indicates Taub's wife is cheating on him with House.

*g*

Rachel's "Jokes!"

...but, I thought she said "Juice!" Or am I missing something?

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

No, I think I misheard something. Crap. "Juice!" makes much more sense... but I'd been so happy, thinking the writers had been clever and meaningful. : (

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

There's a little-used term, "ampersand fic," which uses the & instead of the / symbol. Maybe you could start a movement to bring it back.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Ampersand or hyphen: either will work for me.

[taiga13.livejournal.com]

I hear you. I thought that stuff like that was supposed to be written as House-Rachel, but I could have made it up.
I don't remember Rachel saying "jokes", when did she do that?
What really got my attention with this ep is that while people talked about Wilson's interactions with Rachel, House didn't interact with her AT ALL. He denied her juice and tried to get her to spit out that nickel, both of which he had to do, but otherwise he never spoke to her at all. Not even during the medical treatments. I'm picturing crazed fans furiously fanwanking this as proof that House is a devoted stepfather.

[blackmare.livejournal.com]

House reads to me as being terrified of that kid. We know from canon that he has no problem with small children in general, and even relates incredibly well to them, but Rachel scares the hell out of him because of what she means.

[taiga13.livejournal.com]

(nods) I thought so too, but the question becomes how is he going to deal with that? Does he WANT to?

[blackmare.livejournal.com]

I don't believe he wants to deal with it at all, no. And if they're together long enough it'll become a real Issue.

House is just so afraid that he'll screw things up with Rachel, which is much worse than just screwing things up with Cuddy. Because Cuddy would maybe forgive him for any damage he might inadvertently to do her, but forgiving him for any accidental harm to her kid is a whole other thing.

Rachel's like ... oooohhh, I am going to save that thought I just had in case I wanna use it for ficcing.

[taiga13.livejournal.com]

Tease!
This is what it always comes down to for me. He can't choose just to be with Cuddy, it's Cuddy+Rachel. (See what I did there, Dee?). He can't be Cuddy's boyfriend without being Rachel's stepfather, not long-term.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

I think he might be somewhat scared of screwing Rachel up, while at the same time not wanting to deal with the hassle of being a parent. It's not just concern for Rachel, or for how Cuddy will feel about anything happening to Rachel (although those could be there), it's about him wanting to have the freedom to have himself be the only one he has to take care of. (And even for that he gets a big assist from Wilson, but you know, why not take help if you can get it?)

There are a lot of things that go into why being a parent is hard: worry/anxiety over kid's future; responsibility you feel for how they turn out; physical exertion to keep them fed, clothed, not running into traffic, etc.; intellectual exertion in learning how to parent; and mental exertion of having to amuse/talk to/instruct them. Plus you can't do everything your own way; you have to adjust your life to your kid's needs and to some extent their preferences.

House seems like very much an introvert to me, and I gotta say that just having to listen to and interact with your kids as much as they need is exhausting for an introvert.

Or, to paraphrase Cuddy from "All In": "Kids are evil; you're right to drive them away."

[black-cigarette.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree completely, which is why I have never been in a big hurry to be a mom. And of course that's much of House's fear; I had mentally lumped "Inability/unwillingness to do all these things" into "fear of screwing it all up/hating it/sucking at it."

A kid is a whole-life-changer, and it's hard enough for House to deal with the whole-life-changes involved in a relationship with another adult, let alone the larger-by-magnitudes changes inherent in parenthood.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

I write it with a hyphen, when I'm writing House-Wilson friendship fics -- with the occasional jaunt into commas when I want to be vague ("Characters: House, Wilson" instead of "Pairing: House-Wilson friendship"). But ah well.

Felis_Nocturna has corrected me that Rachel actually said "Juice!" It was after House told her that her mom wouldn't let her have juice "because Cuddy's mean."

You're right; House didn't interact with Rachel much. He said back during motorcycle shopping that he thought she was boring, even compared to other kids her own age ("I'm grading on a curve"). Hmm.

[taiga13.livejournal.com]

She did seem extraordinarily dull to me for a two-year-old.
Yes, I can't see House wanting to raise a child either. But that's what being with Cuddy means. I'm an introvert and yes, I find it exhausting and boring to be around other people's children - having one 24/7 would be too much for me.

[taiga13.livejournal.com]

Her birth mother was an alcoholic, it's possible she could have fetal alcohol syndrome or affect, but I doubt the show is going that way. Cuddy would be watching for that and it would have come up by now.

[jomadge.livejournal.com]

I'm picturing crazed fans furiously fanwanking this as proof that House is a devoted stepfather.

And indeed, they are. *g* I'm amazed how much some fans can spin and twist things to fit what they want to see.

[pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com]

Someone once brought me to complete screaming halt with "Wilson/Blythe House" in the header of a G-rated fic. The slash, it is not an all-purpose piece of punctuation. :D

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

"House/Rachel" to me indicates Taub's wife is cheating on him with House.

... you know, that might be a really interesting fic. *g*

But yeah, the slash mark, she is not a one-size-fits-all punctuation.

[blackmare.livejournal.com]

I wonder how far you'd have to bend Rachel's characterization (what we have of it) to make that work.

I can perhaps see it happening if Rachel, figuring that House is smart, is rude and callous by all accounts, and sees more of her husband than she does, decides to go confront House about whether Taub is having another affair.

And House tells her, and she ... realizes that he's not enjoying this. He's enough of a bastard not to even try to make the bitter pill go down easier, but not enough of a bastard to like being the one to tell her.

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

Yep, it could be a tricky story to negotiate, but I think someone could make it work. Not me, necessarily, but someone. *g*

[blackmare.livejournal.com]

I could see her being drawn to House because House isn't lying to her and Chris is. And has been, and she's sick of not knowing what's real and what isn't.

Don't think it'd last long at all, though; she's not the kind of woman for whom adultery holds any thrill. And I'm not actually sure House would take her up on it. Hm.

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

And I'm not actually sure House would take her up on it.

This. That's the part I'd really have to think about. We know House has acted before with other guys' girlfriends (Crandall), and considering the hallucinatory version of Amber that he saw, I'd say he had some sexual attraction to her, but ... a wife? I don't know. I would imagine he considers marriage vows to be an artificial construct of society, but I'm still not sure he would sleep with someone's wife. On the other hand, he's House.

I agree completely that it wouldn't last long -- maybe even just a one-night stand. And then there's the whole Cuddy aspect, although one could do this as an AU where House and Cuddy aren't together. Or it takes place before they're together.

[taiga13.livejournal.com]

House was actively trying to break up Crandall and his fiancee, though, to HELP Crandall. Whereas in his own weird way he's tried to help Taub by stopping him from having an affair.

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

Ah, this is true. I do think one could tweak the circumstances, though, so that that's what House told himself he was doing -- that he was helping Crandall by sleeping with his girlfriend. Just a possibility. *g*

[black-cigarette.livejournal.com]

Well, House did sleep with Stacy when she was married to Mark, so it's not completely off-limits to him morally, but on the other hand, he was not willing to conduct a clandestine affair, even with her. He wasn't willing to be the hidden "other man."

And Stacy was a different situation, in which he felt he had a claim.

With Rachel Taub, though? I can see why she might be interested in him, but I'm not clear on why House might want her. Not that there's anything wrong with her; she's attractive, sure, but House seems to require ...

... maybe it would be her boldness in coming to him and demanding to know whatever he could tell her. I could see where that would engage House's interest. But so far that's not the Rachel we've seen on the show.

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think he would definitely appreciate her having the balls to approach him, and she is attractive. I dunno ... like I said, I think it would be a tricky story to set up. Unless one just wanted to go for House being bored and being a bastard, which I believe would be an easier play in something like the Tritter Arc. Except (obviously) Taub wasn't around then.

[ixquic.livejournal.com]

House also slept with Lydia (Broken) and he knew she was married. So, the marriage not really a limit for House, the relationship with Taub on the other hand....

[xaipw.livejournal.com]

People need to learn how to use a damn hyphen! I haven't seen the House-Rachel episode yet. :(

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

It's fun; you should see it! It'll be up on fox.com on Tuesday, I think. :D

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

I actually missed that eppie, but House, like me, is clearly not all that into kids and he knows perfectly well that being in a relationship with a parent, it's a package deal.

[anoel.livejournal.com]

I've been actually pondering this very issue. My thing is, I feel some, well for me, vids can go either way and I hate to be THE decider telling a person whether it's romantic or platonic or not. It just seems safer to me to put the slash and have the person reading decide whether they will take it as romantic or not. If I have an opinion about it being platonic, I'd usually just put platonic in parenthesis which still seems ignorable if you ship them. Plus I wouldn't know what to put instead, it doesn't seem like there's on decided notation of it in fandom.