they are gay. they are trans. they are autistic.

house and wilson r both autistic and on complete opposite ends of the spectrum

(bear with me here i'm autistic myself and it's hard to articulate my thoughts)

wilson masks heavily. he knows he's different than everyone else and he tries so desperately not to be. he wants to be seen as a normal guy. he's the furthest thing from it but nobody needs to know that if he can help it. he knew he was different since he was a kid and it upset him. he worked so hard to create an image of himself that is palatable. he is very concious abt it. he clings to normalcy. his knuckles r white and his nails r digging into it. the only person he is ok with letting go of it for is house. house is is safe space. house is the one person he knows will not care if he acts a little different.

house, however, doesn't mask very much at all. if he wanted to, he probably could (although i also partially think he couldn't) but he doesn't. he just doesn't give a shit. he doesn't care abt what ppl think and he doesn't rlly care how he affects them either. he says what is on his mind. he is the way he is and he feels no shame for it. social rules r stupid and he doesn't respect them. he doesn't respect any rules.

wilson is primarily sensory avoident. he likes peace and calm. he especially doesn't like visual overstimulation. he likes things to be neat and pristine. when his space is organized, he can function. his environment influences the state of his head.

house is very sensory seeking. he thrives in chaos. he needs the outside world to be as fast and loud and hectic as his mind is. he needs noise and things to look at and something in his hand (his stupid red autism ball). he's never doing nothing when he's thinking. he likes soap operas and crappy reality tv partially because it's good background noise. it doesn't take up much brain power, but it's still a constant noise.

wilson has big body language. he is very expressive. i know this is rlly bc rsl is a stage actor and that's what they do but. let me have this. but that's just how he is. every symptom of autism exists on its own spectrum. some autistics have a very flat affect, very little body language, and very little expressions. some (wilson) have the exact opposite.

house doesn't outwardly show many of his emotions. he definitely feels them, they're very intense, but he doesn't display them. he isn't expressive, and it's not by choice. that's just naturally how he is.

this is more of a headcanon but whatever. wilson likes stim toys. he stims subtly (part of him trying to cling to normalcy. he needs to stim and he knows that but he won't do anything like hand flapping or rocking.), like with a fidget cube or one of those spinny rings. when he's alone, he'll sometimes let himself stim in bigger ways and it's a great release. he doesn't rlly need to stim as much as house does tho. also i think he'd love pressure and cuddling for stimulation. he'd like to be squished.

house is always stimming. this isn't a headcanon. this man is always doing something! pacing, playing with his ball, listening to music, he's always doing something for some sort of stimulation. he likes vestibular stimming and big full body stims best. he likes to move and do things. he likes to be busy. a fidget toy won't do much for him. he was a pretty active person before the infarction, and that was a great release for his emotions. but now he can't do the things he used to so he needs to constantly be moving. he doesn't get a big release so he's just constantly letting it out.

they're both very particular abt their ways of living, but they do not live the same way. wilson likes calm, house likes chaos. if this is disturbed, they get upset and distressed.

wilson has more shutdowns, house has more meltdowns. not to say they don't have both, tho.

also i feel the need to say this: house's special interest is humanity. he loves puzzles and humans are the greatest one of them all. everything he does is motivated by his need to know why people do what they do. oh and also monster trucks.

WILSON

SERIOUSLY???

“IRENE ADLER”????

“THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY”?????

YOU ABSOLUTE DORK, WILSON

Now go kiss your best friend good night because BBC Sherlock refused to make the world happy with Johnlock and you are our only hope left.

I was so confused as to why wilson's big stupid puppy dog eyes looked familiar. and then it finally hit me

he got two for the price of one lol

Seriously why are the people on this sub kind of funny sometimes

incredibly neurotypical thing to say

Once again thinking about House + food issues

House grew up in a household where “if you were two minutes late for dinner, you didn’t eat.” It follows there would have been other rules surrounding food, likely things like “this is what’s for dinner, eat it or you don’t eat” and “you have to finish what’s on your plate.”

I feel like this would be a possible explanation for why he steals Wilson’s food so often.

House is conditioned to eat whatever is on his plate and finish it. House is smart guy though, and would likely find work arounds to his own issues/behaviours, ie: if it’s not on HIS plate the rules don’t apply.

It would explain why House sometimes eats off Wilson’s plate and sometimes gets his own. If House likes what’s available in the cafeteria and feels he can finish a portion of it he makes Wilson buy him lunch.

However, if he is unsure if he likes what’s available he’ll eat off Wilson’s plate and if he doesn’t like it it’s okay because it isn’t his meal, there is no pressure to eat more.

Same goes for if House isn’t particularly hungry but recognizes he should eat something (could be lots of reasons for this but gotta throw in my personal headcanon of autistic House having poor interoception so he doesn’t always feel hunger, thirst etc but will sometimes go “I haven’t eaten in a while, I probably should.”) and so he tries a bite of Wilson’s food and if he likes it, he steals half. The small portion is more manageable when he is experiencing low appetite and is less stressful to need to finish.

my beloved losers

Not only does House being autistic and queer make sense, it thematically and emotionally fulfills the heart of the show. Firstly, almost every aspect of House's character makes more sense through the lens of him being on the spectrum, and the fact that they literally pointed this out in the autism episode but refused to commit to confirming it is emblematic to a misunderstanding and disrespect to what autism is (the show thinking oh house has autistic traits but he has to be his own unique thing, or that an autistic character couldn't be as complex as him). But we knew that.

The thesis of House MD is, what happens when someone refuses to follow societal rules? When someone is brutally honest, goes against authority, has no filter, and does everything their own way? House tests this in every episode- when the stakes are high, will he still push the boundaries? Will he self destruct? Will he get away with it? and also in every episode, the PATIENT is also outside social norms in some way. They have an unusual lifestyle, career, personality, or sexuality, and usually their "difference" is making them sick, or they have an underlying medical condition that is causing it. It usually destroys their personal lives, but ultimately the "thing" they commit to is what makes them happy.

This is the medical, or "main plot" core of the show. The emotional "B Plot" answers the question- When someone (House) refuses to follow societal rules and can never be "normal" (his addiction and disability), can he still have a lasting relationship? Can he still be happy? Every single season tries to answer this question. For a while Cuddy is the answer, until the show disproves this. But from the first episode to the last, Wilson is there, always emotionally pushing house to be vulnerable, to improve his life. Every season tests their relationship, but wilson always comes back. Just like House, he's not normal.

Being queer and autistic explains much House's  difficulties with conventional norms and conventional (heteronormative) relationships. When we do see House have sex, it's a weighty moment of emotional vulnerability, because most of the time sex is a mechanical act for him. He rarely has a girlfriend, never dates. We barely ever even see him have sex, but he makes a big deal out of hiring hookers for companionship (and comphet) because he cant form a meaningful lasting relationship with anyone but wilson.  The thesis question of the show is "Can House be happy?". Wilson is the answer.

back with more house autism moments lets go

- when he has meltdowns or gets overstimulated he locks himself in his office with all the lights off and just throws his ball against the wall over and over again. the only person who knows and can tell when he's hurtling over the edge is wilson, and sometimes wilson lets him curl up on his couch with one of wilson's jackets over his head and wilson just quietly does work on his computer so house can listen to him breathing

- house has so so many stim toys because he actively destroys them by accident. he prefers stuff he can spin or manipulate the pieces of (and obvs his ball) but he has to keep such a surplus because he will fucking ruin them or lose them in a moment of stress

- he also uses his gameboy to stim, he's played all of his games so many times he barely has to think about it and having his hands moving keeps his mind straight

- when house is overstimulated or having a meltdown he is dead silent. he was trained into being "normal" by all the ppl in his early life so he just shuts down entirely except for scratching himself or digging his nails into his skin. it took wilson time to recognize this as him melting down but now wilson can recognize the look in his eyes nearly instantly

- house learned asl and forces wilson to learn some too so they can a) talk across the balcony and b) communicate when he's non verbal. he often uses asl to cause fucking PROBLEMS for wilson

- @greghatecrimes posted a bunch of good autistic thirteen stuff and i'm shamelessly piggybacking off of them to say that thirteen learns asl too and then they shit talk the other fellows in front of them. the main purpose was for talking when one of them was nonverbal but then

- house alternates between no eye contact and aggressively too much eye contact. it depends on how he feels but he is unashamed of either. he will kubrick stare you to death

- house uses elaborate metaphors that make sense to no one because idioms and metaphors ALREADY dont make sense to him so why not make up his own

- house's office is meticulously arranged and he can tell if something is different the Minute he comes in. he can also tell with wilson's office

- the reason house doesnt go to department head meetings is because he gets very understimulated and starts acting up! he hates sitting and having to listen and not being able to do any of his stims and he decided its just not worth it

- house is very hypersensitive to smells. hospital smells dont bother him because theyre Familiar but if someone wears too strong cologne or if he's near a candle its all he can think abt

feeling autistic gonna project on my blorbos (wilson autism headcanons)

- he is primarily sensory avoidant. he likes quiet and calm. organization. he hates clutter and visual overstimulation. if u slapped a pair of noise canceling headphones on him, u would change his life

- he is more sensory seeking with smell and taste, though. he likes to cook, right? he enjoys bold and complicated flavors. he's more adventurous with food textures and tastes and is actually willing to try a lot of new things. food textures do not bother him much

- he struggles to accommodate himself. he knows he has needs associated with his autism but it's hard to fulfill them. he knew he was different from everybody else from a young age, and he hated it. he forced himself to act the way everyone else did and managed to build a mask so strong he doesn't know where to begin with unmasking. he would benefit deeply from stuff like ear defenders and stim toys, but those are physical reminders that he isn't like everybody else.

- while he isn't very particular about food textures, he is with his clothes. he wears like maybe two different brands because they're the only ones that don't make him want to crawl out of his skin.

- he has a big thing with things being how they "should" be. if there's a system in place, he needs to follow that system.

- honestly, i have no basis for this one, but he struggles with interoception (the cues your body sends to tell you to do stuff such as eat, drink, or use the bathroom). he has a mental schedule going for most of theze things. every 15-30 minutes, have a sip of water. meals at certain times. stuff like that

- he has a special interest in cinema/theater. we see he has movie posters and stuff in his office, and he'll occasionally make references. i think someone pointed out on here that, while it's made known that's an interest of his, he rarely talks about it. it's just kinda... there. i attribute that to his self conciousness and masking. he doesn't want people to think he's "obsessive" or "weird" or put people off. so he keeps it to himself.

- for stimulation, he especially likes pressure. he likes tight hugs or cuddling or weighted things.

- house is one of the few people he ever lets that mask down with. house doesn't care if wilson is "normal." i like to imagine house has a stash of stim toys in his home (mostly for wilson, because house stims in other ways. he knows wilson won't buy them for himself, so he keeps them around), and wilson almost always helps himself.

- he has more shutdowns that meltdowns. he has both, but it's mainly shutdowns. when they happen, he likes to spend time in house's office. house doesn't ask questions, doesn't make him talk. just lets him hang around until he's ready.

- he enjoys organizing and cleaning. he likes his spaces to be pristine. he needs his environment to be neat and perfect, otherwise he gets uncomfortable and distressed. it gets hard to function in chaos

Vote!

insane how wilson accurately diagnosed house with autism and then the writers decided they didn’t want the responsibility of representation so the next scene is him going “you’re not autistic, you just have every single sign i mentioned!” like ok

SURPRISE! The promised crack video arrives! >:) Happy International Lesbian Day!

This one goes out to not only my fellow House MD-loving lesbians, but especially to the lesbians in the writers' room. We see you, and we bask in the many gifts that you have given us. Real recognizes real. ;) Also, a special thank you to my buddy @childrenofmalkav for beta-watching this nonsense <3

(HEADPHONE WARNING at 0:55 and 1:03)

[HD and CC available on YouTube]

So I rewatched the House episode about the autistic child wherein Wilson correctly diagnoses House as being on the spectrum and then seemingly goes back on it for no valid reason. The most likely reason for this is writer cowardice (they didn't want to have to deal with a canon autistic character), but allow me to present a conspiracy theory: Wilson is autistic.

He has only one friend, who is also on the spectrum, because that friend alone can see and appreciate the side of him he usually hides. He has the same random interests as this friend. He seems to be the only one to understand what his friend is trying to say. He gives House second chance after second chance because he knows what it is like to miscommunicate/tries to give benefit of the doubt.

Most of his social interactions are extremely surface level: he has a pleasant script he sticks to, either for flirting, talking to a patient, or just talking to any random nt person. He gets married to people he doesn't let past the mask both because he wants to conform to social standards. He does it again because he thinks he just messed up the script last time and this time he will get it right. He cheats because he doesn't instinctively link sex and intimacy--what he grasps as a standard mistake is actually a betrayal. This also might explain why his most intimate relationship is with House, the person he doesn't script around, even though they never have canon sex.

He wants to be needed because when he can help people he feels like he is doing socializing right. When someone no longer needs him, he panics, because he either has to stop scripting or increase scripting, and both scare him.

He is also extremely specific about his routines and preferences, and gets annoyed when they are disrupted. He is paralyzed by open-ended decisions: when he is turned loose in a furniture store, he can't make a single choice because there are so many.

Wilson is extremely invested in scripting, to the point where he flees relationships when it no longer works. He spends all day every day trying very hard to be the picture perfect doctor, spouse, friend, etc. So when House is dealing with sensory issues around the carpet, he helps by explaining to Cuddy something he alone of the other characters understands. But when he talks to House about it, he blows this understanding off. In his mind, he works so hard to be so nice, so therefore it is possible, even if damages him. He probably doesn't know it damages him to the extent it does. Therefore, he insists House's behavior isn't because he's autistic, but rather because he's just an ass. Because if autism is an excuse to not mask, he hasn't needed to mask this whole time.

Not saying I'm wholly invested in this theory, but *imitates House's voice* "it fits."

At this point, Wilson definitely packs a second lunch that he writes his name on and "hides" from House because it's the only way House will actually eat lunch. He definitely goes out of his way to make sure he brings things he knows House will enjoy, too, instead of just bringing stuff that he likes.