I always assume that the blue-eyed genius daughter was a Mary Sue Jr. Although, really, let's look at the real-life implications of being House's daughter: He'd probably not pick her up from the sitter for days on end while involved in a case. At home, there's a good chance he'd forget to feed her because there's nothing but peanut butter and canned soup in the kitchen. And can you imagine a five-year-old wearing an old Barking Irons t-shirt as a dress? School social workers tend to frown on that kind of thing. So while the writers of these stories are imagining life with a dad far cooler than the one they have in real life, in truth it would just be a tragic tale of child neglect. (Looks around for the tongue-in-cheek smiley.)

House daughter also inherits the snark and rock and roll t-shirt gene I remember to read one fic (or maybe was a MST, I'm not quite sure) where his daughter also inherits his limp!gene! And probably his cane!gene, too :roll:

I don't think it was the same. In this one she was embarrassed to go to school because of the cane and House, that sensitive kind of guy, was trying to make her proud of her disability. Actually, I'm the one feeling embarrassed for those people...

Corgigirl, I'm glad you brought it up because I was afraid to: I think House would be a bad parent! And am constantly surprised when he's represented as this great dad in fanfic. I always figured it was mostly wish fulfillment on the part of authors, either wanting a cool dad and fantasy perfect childhood or some twisted Elektra complex.

Heavens! Where do you guys go to read fic? I've stumbled over some really bad stuff in roughly ten years of reading, but I've always figured I shouldn't complain as long as I can't come up with something better. But what I'm reading here has me scratching my head. :blink: Some of you are the best writers in House fandom. How do you deal with reading things like that? I mean... typos and dreadful grammar and jumping tenses aside, if not even the plot is engaging, why read? I'm asking just out of curiosity (and am jumping into the discussion because I heard t-shirts mentioned :wink: ). ETA: I just wanted to clear my reaction is to stories that would seriously go the Mary-Sue daughter with eye, limp, snark and cane gene route (not literally... you know what I mean). Because I know that there are a couple very good offspring fics out there. I wasn't trying to throw all of them in one pot and condemn them. Uh.... sorry. Carry on.

I've been sitting on my hands, wondering if I should post here or not. Maybe it's a bad idea, as I am in defensive mode right now. But here it goes. I just finished posting a novel-length daddy!House fic. It was reactionary on my part. I had read a lot of bad daddy!House fics too, and I wanted to try to write a good one. I've been writing creatively since I was a young kid, but the only person who has read any of my fiction in the past 15 years is my best friend. This was my first time sharing with anyone outside her, so it was a big deal to me. When I say "bad fics," I am talking about fics in which the writing is bad, House is OUT OF CHARACTER, and in which the child is mary-sue-ish. Most important thing to me in fan-fic is that the characters must be in character, not idealized. I hope you're not trashing the entire genre of daddy!House fics. Look at deelaundry's Jack-verse. It's wonderful. House and Wilson are in character, and they have a kid. A very interesting kid. So dee has done it--which means it can be done. I tried to do it as well, but with a daughter. One of my goals was to create a realistic character in House's daughter. She is smarter than average—smart enough to become a doctor, though she is not exactly at House's level. She does not have blue eyes, and in fact looks nothing like him. She looks like her mother and has her father's height gene. She's tall for a girl, basically. She is not a mary-sue, and she is not a self-insert. She might have a couple of my qualities, but she is NOT ME. I do not have an elektra complex, neither for my own father nor for House. And while the character loves and admires her father, she is not "in love" with him. (Gross!) I have no idea whether intelligence is an inherited trait, but there is the "nurture" aspect at play here. Being around House and all his books and his cool science stuff and his inquisitive nature... it is realistic that this environment would foster intellectual development in a child. (And I'm sure as a dad he would encourage all that and would hold education up as something very important.) Same with the snark... it's nurture. We learn modes of communication from our family of origin. If your parents are sarcastic, then you could very easily become sarcastic yourself... once you're old enough to understand the nature of sarcasm. If your parents are open and honest, then you likely will be too. If your parents don't talk about anything, then you'll have a hard time talking about things too. (That's me and my family of origin. I had to "learn" how to talk about feelings when I became a mother. It doesn't come easily to me, b/c I did not learn it growing up.) I have two young children, so the parent-child relationship is a big deal to me right now. I think a lot about parenting. I think about how my actions and words and style of communication all affect my kids. And while some of you say that you think House would be a terrible father, I respectfully disagree. He's a great teacher, he has a big-picture style of looking at things, he has a great deal of wisdom, and he's pragmatic. These traits are wonderful and useful in a parent... I wish I could see things as clearly as he does, esp. in terms of my own kids. While my daddy!House is mostly a good father, he is not exactly traditional, and he makes a LOT of mistakes... like all parents. Parenting is a work-in-progress; we all screw-up and learn as we go along. So... my main goals were to write a good fic, write an interesting character in the daughter, keep House in character, and stick to canon. I thought it would be interesting to explore how House's child would react to canon events... the infarction, the step-mother (whom she loves) leaving them afterward, and some big events in S1-4. I wrote most of it about halfway through S4, and hence I ignored the Amber stuff. And while I had to soften-up House a little bit with his child, he still is House... in the way House is with kids on the show. He's fun, but, true to character, he passes on his realistic, cynical view of the world to her, especially as she gets older. I think my daughter character is very NOT PERFECT... some of my readers even said they like her but that she is annoying at times. Which is what I wanted. Nobody is perfect. I also wanted to get House and Wilson together as a couple, so I took care of that in my fic too. ;-) That was great fun, especially to explore what the grown child's reaction would be. I'm just feeling defensive. It's ok if you don't like daddy!House fics, and if you don't... why do you read them? The very dark Contract-verse fics do not appeal to me at all, because I can't handle that kind of torture on my beloved House. :) But I don't go around trashing their universe; I respect what they've created, because they are all good writers and they have kept House in character (from what I can see in the bits I have read). I understand to a degree, as I don't generally like House-Cameron romantic fics, b/c I despise that pairing. I sometimes read them out of curiosity, but I don't go around trashing them. Some are well-written; some are not. Likewise with daddy!House fics. Some are well-written; some are not. Just like any other genre. I think that a lot of the bad!fic out there (in all genres) is written by teenagers who do not yet have a realistic view of human nature and of the world. I am not putting down teenagers at all; I was once a teenager who wrote mary-sue characters. But most teenagers haven't yet been out in the world and experienced adult life... which leads to mary-sue characters and unrealistic writing. And this is why I generally avoid MST fics. While they are funny... I feel sort of bad, because I imagine most of the writers (whose work is being MST-ed) are teenagers. Kids. Sorry this is so long. I had to get this all off my chest.

Taiga, if he was a solo parent, I do think House would be a bad parent. The playful aspects of his personality would be fun for child, but he's not someone you could count on for the mundane but necessary details like packing a lunchbox every night or noticing a kid needs new underwear. He does seem to like children better than he does most adults, but he doesn't always behave toward them in a more sensitive manner. This is, after all, the guy who put a six-year-old on hospital elevator by herself and who relentlessly quizzed an 11-year-old about the details of her mother's sex life. In a parenting relationship with another person who was willing to do the vast majority of the work, then he'd probably be okay. (This is the scenario I imagined the times I wrote stories in which House had offspring.) But any situation in which there was no one else to fill in for House's parenting deficiencies would be a disaster.

But Corgi, nobody knows how to be a good parent until they are a parent. We all learn how to parent "on the job." We get thrown into it, and we do it. On the show, House is not a parent. But if he became a parent, he would learn as he went along. Maybe he wouldn't pack a lunch, but he'd make sure the kid was paid-up for school lunch. Or he'd manipulate Wilson into making lunches for the kid. :lol: He's not a moron, and he's not forgetful. I grew up with a single father and no mother. My father didn't realize when I needed new underwear, but I let him know when I did. It wasn't a great upbringing, but we managed. I survived. And comparing House and my own father... I'm 100% positive that House would make a better overall father.

I think there are good House as a father fics, Nightowl, but the problem is, they're outnumbered by 100 to 1 by the bad ones. You didn't write a Sue, Dee's series keeps everyone in character, Simple__Man's Church'verse works well, Corgigirl's written very feasible House-as-a-parent stuff. And yes, being raised around a sarcastic person will increase your own sarcasm tendencies. My problems with the Sue-daughters is that they're always long lost, never met House and yet when she encounters House at the age of 15 or so (and it's almost always 15), everyone suddenly realizes that she's House's kid by both the snark and the blue eyes (and the requisite band t-shirt). Of course considering that the Pit has one story in which House and Cuddy's secret lurve child is raised by adoptive parents who -- because she's such a spoiled brat -- decide to send her off to live on her own in Princeton and force her to find her own way. At the age of 12. And Corgigirl thought that House would be a bad parent. :roll:

Ok, thank you for saying all that, Namaste. I agree with you about the 100-to-1 thing, and I don't like long-lost daughters either. Too sitcom-y. It just felt like the entire genre was being bashed. But there are some genres that are even more over-the-top. It's all about personal taste. (And I wasn't saying that my fic is fantastic or the be-all end-all of daddy fics or that it necessarily belongs in the company of the Jack-verse. But I do have standards, and I set out to meet them.) I've never read the Church-verse, though I've seen mention of it. So much to do, so much to do...

I'd find it interesting to read a fic where House has a child with autism and if anyone knows of any, give a shout out, I'd love to read it. I remember seeing one in the Pit, I didn't read it so I don't know if it was good or not. My curiosity about a fic where House's child isn't brilliant is because a lot of people assume that part of the reason House's childhood was so difficult was because people had trouble understanding this genius child, especially his father. I can completely see that. So how would House handle the flip side of this, being a genius but raising a child who's stupid? Being relentlessly intellectually curious with a kid who's intellectually dull and not interested in learning anything? He's a great teacher, he has a big-picture style of looking at things, he has a great deal of wisdom, and he's pragmatic. These traits are wonderful and useful in a parent... Sure, but he's also very self-centered and moody, handles emotional and communication issues badly, and most importantly wouldn't put a child's needs before his own. Not long term. Not to mention the role model he would be... I can see his six-year-old son getting sent to the principal's office for commenting on his teacher's boobs.