Don’t you think the whole Huddy relationship was awkward and cringey? House is always putting her down and making fun of her, she’s the one he’s the biggest a** to. I barely see friendship between them most of the time and seeing them have a relationship was very weird to see. Just curious why you ship it.
hi anon, i really think you've misinterpreted how their relationship functions here. even if you approach their relationship solely from a platonic standpoint, the thing about huddy is their hostility (if you can even call it that) is reciprocal, and any time it isn't - think 3×09 finding judas, 5×14 the greater good or even 5×24 both sides now - is treated as entirely out of the norm. the fact that cuddy consistently bats back house's insults with her own is established from the pilot and to imply that what occurs between them is simply one-sided bullying is really naive, in my opinion.
and honestly, to imply that they aren't close at all is kind of baffling to me. i'm not sure how you can watch seven seasons of house & cuddy interacting - the clear enjoyment both of them take in their banter and mind games, the amount of trust between them with cuddy's ivf plotline, the deep understanding they each have of how the other functions, & how much they obviously care about each other to give a few examples - and come out of it with the impression that they aren't even friends. a smaller instance that i've been thinking about recently is from 5×18 here kitty, where they sit in cuddy's office and watch a report about the eponymous cat together - something that wasn't in any way necessary so to me really just shows how they enjoy spending time together.
personally i'm not the biggest fan of how their actual romantic relationship was portrayed in season seven for various reasons and i can understand people taking issue with it, but as someone who ships them my favourite parts of huddy aren't exclusive to their time dating and more based in their dynamic as a whole. i think it's odd to dismiss the ship entirely because their relationship in season seven doesn't work out or wasn't to people's tastes.
i'm not sure if i can conjure up anything else that will be concise to explain why i ship them. i do however like how their relationship very obviously changes through the seasons, despite them having an established past together. i like getting to watch them grow closer / their feelings develop as the show goes on, it's a lot of fun.
Hello my beloved mutual 🤹🏻♀️ knocking up on your door to ask how are you ! 🤔 And tell me your favourite moments of huddy ! I love their dynamic so much and i remember watching cuddy for the first time and going like THIS WOMAN KNOWS HOW TO HANDLE AN ASS LIKE HOUSE.
iris. IRIS. you are opening a can of worms here. you are unleashing the beast etc. do not ENABLE ME !!!
i am very well. recovering from illness finally !! exciting stuff. and my day has been made all the better from this spectacular question :D please know that when i was rewatching the scenes mentioned For Research it took me a very long time because i kept just. replaying them over again. day in the life of a lor i fear ! but alas i shall cease the rambling. i decided to limit myself to only a couple scenes because believe me if i talked about EVERYTHING i'd be here for like. a month.
there's no particular order to this, they were just the scenes floating around my mind recently. also bear in mind i am not in any way a writer and this is mainly a stream of consciousness ramble with a lot of repeating myself. if that intrigues you, enjoy !
4×13 ☾ NO MORE MR NICE GUY
one of my favourite things about their dynamic, which hopefully is displayed a little through my picks here, is the constant push and pull between house & cuddy in so many scenes, how they each take turns pursuing or deflecting (very clearly laid out in known unknowns where house states his interest in cuddy and she flees the room). this scene to me is once again an example of that - after house finishes his spiel, cuddy immediately changes the subject. it's such an interesting scene to me in ways i can't really word, but i will take a stab at it. a really important element to their relationship imo is this sense of knowing/understanding the other person - most prominently, cuddy employs house and approves his methods because she understands them, which i think is an overlooked/misunderstood aspect of the way they work. in this scene it reads to me that through the performance review house is trying to almost remind cuddy of how much he gets her, however coarsely (obviously the context is important for this, coming after cuddy writes him a rather impersonal performance review) - a lot of it is mocking, yes, but also brutally true ("what you want, you run away from, what you need, you don't have a clue" - cuddy thesis. to me). and then we get the smallest hint of tenderness with "what you've accomplished, makes you proud… but you're still miserable", as well as a reversed callback to season one. the amount of little callbacks like this with huddy makes me so giddy i swear. they remember the most minute details about each other !! it's so over man idk.
2×23 ☾ WHO'S YOUR DADDY?
fun sexy scene in an overall ehhh episode lmao. this one sticks out to me in particular because it was i think the first time i really GOT IT yk. i locked the fuck in on cuddy from i think 2×03 humpty dumpty on my first watch? (seems a long time but. i watched season 1 in a day) but THIS is when i was like. ohhhh huddy is going to be an issue for me. i seriously cannot watch this without giggling and kicking my feet i hate them and i wish this plotpoint was extended because what do you mean it's only for one episode !! alas. i like how drawn-out and insanely tension-filled this scene is, and i like to think about house's… odd feelings surrounding cuddy's potential motherhood because it's a running thing and there's a lot to chew on there imo. did i mention it's really hot
5×17 ☾ THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
hi hello scene of all time here. to me it's key to stress that any aspect of huddy's relationship is unusual, it's out of the ordinary - the way their professional relationship functions, their weird ass courting rituals - which is SO important for them both as characters, esp cuddy who clearly wants to be normal and do what's expected of her, you know? there's so many scenes, including this one, where surface-level it's strange and maybe insulting but actually quite touching if you think about it - house fashions a situation where the goal is for cuddy to be sexually harrassed, yes, but his intention is to convolutedly compliment her because she doesn't take anything he says regarding that seriously? that's romance baby. and again, cuddy immediately understands where he's coming from on this (though pretending to be exasperated and calling him ridiculous because god forbid they reciprocate interest) and is flattered !! her smile as the elevator closes !! i could die she's so adorable she's three seconds old.
3×14 ☾ INSENSITIVE
just the way they're looking at each other in this murders me. this scene in particular has so many elements of their bullshit that drives me INSANE. house pulling reasons practically out of his ass to interrupt cuddy's date but the moment she turns it back on him and suggests maybe he has a thing for her he's rendered speechless !! AND THEN WE'RE HIT WITH "you should hear yourself when you're talking to him - nothing else in the world is going on." LOR THEFANGEDMAN FOUND DEAD. i want to say five hundred more things about this & cuddy and her relationship with romance and masking but i will be kind and spare you. but i don't know, just… the idea of being able to be ur truest self with someone else even if it presents somewhat antagonistically. it gets me going i'm a damn hamster on a wheel
two of my friends are talking about house and one of them likes cuddy and the other one couldn’t remember her name and called her “the principal of the hospital” and said she didn’t like her for a long time and they called her a bitch and i felt really bad i had nothing in my arsenal to defend cuddy or contribute to the conversation
hi ray !! i hope you don't mind if i make this into a Talking Post, because i do unforch have a lot to say !!! i discussed this with liv recently, but imo part of the reason cuddy's disliked sometimes is because i think some people have what i've tentatively dubbed House Vision™ - in which their view of the show can be reduced down to anything that benefits house=good, and anything that hinders house=bad, regardless of the greater picture or considering literally ANY other perspective. a massive part of cuddy's job & role in the show as a whole is putting in place these boundaries for house, and i suppose if you don't really think beyond the surface level it could be easy to just deem her a bitch for this, even though cuddy challenging house is absolutely essential to their working relationship. there's also the added complication that she has the entire hospital to think about. i think that's one of the things that interests me about cuddy the most - as the viewer we're naturally inclined to really only value the characters we know well, like house and the fellows (and the case as an extension of this), but cuddy has a lot more responsibility and consistently needs to make Hard Decisions for the greater good of ppth as a whole, not just what we see, and therefore might be less understandable to casual viewers. i do, also, if you'll forgive me for this, think a lot of the fandom's sourer view of cuddy is influenced by the younger age of a lot of fans who'll kind of automatically associate an authority figure in any capacity with an active threat to themselves - i want to note specifically your friend calling her the hospital's "principal" both because it made me laugh and i think it backs me up a little here too.
please do not feel bad about not being able to defend her !! i've found myself in similar situations in person (where someone was weirdly misogynistic and just straight up rude about her to me after finding out i liked her, and i was completely incapable of any worthwhile comeback) and i understand how hard it is to think up a defence on the fly like that. thank you so much for telling me and i hope you don't mind that i made this into a bit of a yap !!