hi! sorry to bother u with a potentially lengthy ask but; i want to write cuddy and im really worried i dont fully understand her character. i see u talk a lot abt mischaracterisation in the fandom and i agree i think i see it a lot not just with Cuddy but she deffo falls victim to it more than others. do you have any advice for truly understanding a character? getting into their head?
oh anon, this is a big question — one i may not be fully qualified to answer, but will try to nonetheless lol. i'll preface with this: i am just a hobbyist! there is actually a decent amount of people within the houseblr sphere who are like. actually studying english. who can probably speak much more concisely on this topic. i am just an autist with a special interest and a lot of free time.
that being said, here's my advice:
continue to interact with the source material. a lot. a huge gripe i have with fandom characterization is that it is often parroted with complete disregard to canon by people who likely watched the show once and have survived on fanon material ever since. not that that's a bad thing — i don't expect everyone who participates in fandom to continuously rewatch whatever they're talking about —, but that in just interacting with fan material, you lose your grip on what truly makes up a character in canon. it's just helpful to stay knowledgable on what is definitive in canon and to be able to distinguish it from what may be popular — yet, oftentimes, completely untrue — within the fandom.
in conjunction with the first point, identify their focus episodes. by this, i mean episodes in which this character has a main plotline, an important story beat, or at least has an important presence in the episode that gives more insight into their character. for example, episodes like Humpty Dumpty and Joy are clear Cuddy Focus Episodes, but i count episodes like Babies & Bathwater and Finding Judas as focus episodes as well because cuddy's scenes in those episodes illuminate something important about her character. once you know where their focus is, you can examine those episodes further to understand what themes are frequently brought up with them, and you have a list of what episodes to come back to to refresh yourself on your knowledge of this character.
this point definitely leans more towards character analysis than just being able to write a character, but: ask questions while watching aka get curious about this character! the more that you ask yourself questions of "why did they do ___?", "what was their motivation here?", etc, and the more that you search to answer these questions, the better you understand the character. for example, in a part of my analysis of Finding Judas, i wondered why house lashed out at cuddy when he did and in the way he did, and thus spent a long time going through my own thoughts and theories about it, before ultimately coming to a satisfactory conclusion, and therefore understanding house as a character better.
lastly, make note of what makes up the character. bare bones style. what i mean by this is gender, religion, job, age, etc. things that are easy to point out, but still make a huge difference in how the character interacts with the world and vice versa. for example, cuddy is a jewish woman in her 40s, she is going to interact with the world differently from chase, who is a catholic man in his 30s. don't forget to take these things into consideration when talking about/writing them.
tldr: watch the show and pay close attention to the character that you want to understand.
there are also tons of phenomenal meta posters 'round these parts whose posts can definitely help you understand characters better — fandom isn't all mischaracterization, after all! for cuddy specifically, i'd reccommend checking out my cuddy meta tag if you haven't already, because those are all posts in which i analyze her ad nauseam.
i hope this helps !! as i've said a bit recently, i'm not really much of a fic writer so much as i am an analyst, so these definitely lean more towards analysis, but i believe they can help with getting into the head of a character, so to speak. and don't ever apologize for sending a lengthy ask! i have a lot of fun answering them :)
