theskytides application
Canon Character and Series: Gregory House, M.D. , House M.D.
In-Game Name: Gregory House
Age: 50
Gender: Male
Position & Ship (first and second choice for position please):
Doctor on Victoria II OR Records Keeper. Hopefully not the latter, because he'll get fired pretty quickly tbh
Appearance:
House is of average height, 6'2", but he walks with a limp in his right leg. This right leg is severely scarred because a large amount of the muscle tissue was removed, but you're not going to see it, so don't worry. He always carries around a cane, complete with bitchin' flames at the bottom. House is also quite partial to clothing that wouldn't exactly be considered professional for his line of work, but. He has brown hair and blue eyes, and, of course, House's eternal 5 o'clock shadow, and it's like brown/black with a random grey patch goddamn.
Personality:
House is a jackass. That's really all there is to it. But he has attained a kind of nirvana of being a total douchebag, ascending to levels never imagined, or at least, not for a doctor. It's fairly incredible, and is attributed to how much his life has sucked. But there are several points to his asinine behavior, so let's get this started!
So like I said, House is a complete, utter jackass. But he is an insanely intelligent one. He's, arguably, the best diagnostician in the country, and he's proud of that fact. He's an arrogant guy with pride the size of Texas I MEAN--SOMETHING VERY LARGE. It's certainly not undeserved, though. Most of the time, no matter what it is, House is right. A patient, paternities, a bet, House just has the gift of either being lucky or having his intelligence on his side. After all, in the hundred or so cases presented in House M.D., there have been less than five cases where he was not right. Pretty good track record for 5 years.
I imagine that his accuracy is nothing less than superb because of his bad attitude. That sounds odd, but remember that House's idolization of the untouchable man made him want to become a doctor, and I think shaped House's personality substantially. House is obsessed with finding the answers, and getting the right ones because he thinks that as long as he produces results, then people can tolerate him. This is why he seems so upset when cases do not go as planned. So House is a perfectionist, in a sense. He wants to uphold his reputation, in part, but he also feels the need to do so to keep himself from being completely alienated.
But this brings up another important part. If he's worried about being alienated, it would stand to reason that he could just change his personality a bit to not be so offensive. But House is stubborn and resistant to change. Once he gets settled with a particular set of people, he doesn't want new ones to invade his turf, or for the others to leave. This is evidenced by his resistance to Vogler taking over and having to pick a new team especially. But Vogler is different too, because this revealed his stubbornness. House is resistant to change, sure, but more than that, he hates being told what to do.
House frequently goes against the rules, not just to rebel or not conform, but because he finds them trivial. The lab coat rule or professional dress rule are ignored 99% of the time, and House is likely to skip out on his required menial duties by playing games or whatever is his fancy that day. He does what he wants to do. Yet that's not to say that he doesn't take orders. It's more like he's very specific in whose orders he takes. That comes down to respect. The people that House respects are the only ones that can make him waver or even consider doing something that he doesn't want to do. For example, House doesn't always pick up cases on his own, but rather, gets them presented by his team, Cuddy, or Wilson. These are the only people that he will consider it for, just because he does respect them enough to value their opinions and ideas.
But people he does respect, that's a very small pool. They're people that can deal with his crap, in one sense, but he likes people that can retaliate, or humor him, like Wilson does. He has no patience for ignorance or stupidity, and will brush people off for it. Though, House's version of brushing people off is his trademark. The reason House is such a popular show is because of its titular character, who is famous for his biting sarcasm. Obviously, people that annoy him get the worst of it. And it's this that also makes him a confrontational person. His stubbornness makes him believe that he is always right, so if someone challenges him? Whoa, back up now.
This is why he hates menial trivial things about being a doctor. Having to deal with idiotic problems when he's the best doctor in that hospital is very tedious to him, and the patients are very annoying. He hates things that are boring and ordinary, and those menial tasks fall right into this category for him. It's too easy. Similarly, he doesn't like meeting the patients he actually has. He rarely does, letting his team relay information for him. He just doesn't like interacting with people outside his "circle" and is extremely reluctant to let new people into that circle.
That's not to say he's an emotionless bastard, though. He's still a bastard, but there have been several cases that House has actually become endeared to his patients or made some kind of emotional connection to them. It's brief, understated, and coated in his usual sarcasm, but it is there. The people he bonds the most to are people who society considers abnormal. For example, a schizophrenic, an autistic child, and a homeless person. People cast away are the people that he relates to best, and are the ones that he rarely uses his sarcasm with. These are also the cases that he tends to pick up on his own time rather than being presented with them.
As for all the other patients, he's not the kindest. He's not a shy person by any means, and is quite frank. He's not one to side step asking questions about their sex lives, relationships, or habits, and it's because people lie about these things that House has his infamous motto "Everybody lies". So in his own philosophy, he does consider everyone to be a liar, and treats them as such. Yet, if they admit the truth, he's not even phased by the fact that they lied. It's just brushed off.
But about his patients, House often picks up on important clues when he goes to visit the patient himself. Which is funny, because you would think that he would figure out that he should visit them more often, but nope, quite the opposite. House is an observant and perceptive person! He is able to pick up quite accurately about tiny, almost unrelated details about a person and identify underlying problems, whether physical or social. As far as his social perceptiveness goes, he's extremely accurate about picking up details or hints about not-quite-perfect relationships. This is likely because of his lack of luck in this department in general, and his general view of the world as an outsider.
Of course, his outrageous, uncensored questions get him in trouble. Patients get mad, and House has been punched, shot, and threatened. He's a mean person and has no regard for other peoples' feelings. He will scathingly say what he wants because he has no need to censor himself (or so he thinks) and he when something about a person intrigues him, he will interrogate them until he gets the answer he wants. Some people call it bullying, House and Wilson call this a friendship.
Back to his arrogance, his arrogance and unabashed statements, obviously, get him into trouble. I don't only mean with people with just as much power or equal to House's own, but with patients. He tends to skim over informed consent, for example, and coerce a patient into doing a treatment that House thinks is right if they don't agree with them.
I keep jumping around, oops. But anyways, back to the kind of relationships House has, his sarcasm can be a term of endearment, in a way. The only people that he will get close to or allow to get close to him are those that he deems interesting. In fact, his motivation for anything seems to be on the criteria of how personally interesting House finds it. As he says, "anomalies bug me". He likes people, cases, and things that go against the norm, and in terms of people and cases, he digs deeply to find out why that is. He analyzes things intensively because he wants to make sense of the world.
Yet, despite everything, House is unhappy. His life has not been sunshine and rainbows, so he probably hasn't been actually happy in a long time. But he denies it over and over again. If anyone confronts him about it, he responds with a quick "no" and some biting sarcasm to go with it. He's unhappy, but he won't allow himself to admit it because that would be acknowledgment, on his own level, that he's miserable. And he doesn't want that. He wants to function, and unhappiness is a hindrance to functioning. And that is House's definition of happiness, in a way. As long as he can function, he's "happy".
But functioning for House is also defined by another key point of his character: Dolorium. House has severe pain in his leg ever since his surgery, and he takes the pain pill for it. However, he is addicted to the drug. When he's made bets that he can function without it, or it got revoked, then House goes into full blown withdrawal, which is also accompanied by pain. His leg genuinely does hurt to the point that he needs Dolorium, but he takes it more often than he should. It was implied once that he took as many as 5 pills at a time, and he takes "shots of pills" often enough. He is heavily dependent on the drug to function, and remember what functioning is equatable to for House.
Abilities/Weapons:
House is one of those people that you kind of envy, because he has a little experience in everything. And he's not half bad at the majority of them.
But he's (lover) not a fighter. He can't be. He has basic combat training from way back when he enrolled in Belarus Academy, but it's mostly useless now. However, House has his wit and intellect going for him quite well. He's probably one of the most intelligent people you'll ever meet, but also the rudest. They go hand in hand.
How well can your character hack?:
Medium. He doesn't care enough to do it himself, but dabbled once upon a time. That's what his lackies are for.
Weaknesses:
House is your average, crippled human. He can run, but it hurts like hell, so he avoids it. He's not the prime of physical fitness because of his bum leg. Saw through his cane, and he'll fall. How sad.
History:
House is the son of John House, a former pilot for Ivona, and his wife Blythe House. Starting when House was about eight years old, he and his mother started to travel with his father as civilians on whatever ship he was stationed on. It wouldn't have made much of an impact on House's life if not for the one time that his father's ship stopped in Kagatau to inspect the lands. House was fascinated by the ruins, and Kagatu was where House developed his love of puzzles, or his "Rubik's complex", as it's called. He was fascinated with the history and mysteries of ancient Kagatau, thus bringing his love of solving puzzles. However, his desire to become a doctor came from an experience in Vohemar. House went to a Berum hospital, and he met a janitor there. When the Berum hospital couldn't handle a particularly difficult case, this "janitor" stepped up, revealing himself as the best doctor in the hospital. He was also an "untouchable", a man shun by society. House idolized this man for the idea that he did not even try to fit in, yet the other doctors would turn to him when they needed to because they knew that he was brilliant. This was House's ideal: to be so brilliant that you were "free" from social constraints.
It's because of this that House developed not only his drive to succeed, learn, and be better than everyone else, but also that infamous misanthropy of him not giving two shits about what other people think of him. However, despite these two major events that really shaped House's Rubik's Complex, his family life was not so pretty. His father was demanding as a military man, and while his mother was very loving, she had very high expectations for House. Because of being a military child with demanding parents (and in the case of his father and grandmother, sometimes abusive,) House became distant from his peers, and from most other people.
But it was those demanding parents that made House a brilliant person. He was a good student, obviously, and ended up at Belarus Academy, but got expelled for cheating. Oops. Not discouraged at all, he applied again a few years later, proving his worth by getting a perfect score on the entrance exam. He also met a woman named Lisa Cuddy while here because of he became legendary for his brilliance, as usual! Ohoho. He also met his best friend James Wilson in this general time frame, apparently paying Wilson's bail for getting arrested. So basically, Wilson got caught for "vandalism, assault, and property destruction". Tsk, tsk, Wilson. As a funny little side thing, House was also very athletic, participating in as many sports as he could.
At some point, he met Stacy Warner, and they started going out. It's said that they had a pretty deep relationship, but Stacy did something to House that he couldn't forgive. In a supreme act of irony, House suffered an infarction (an main artery blockage) in his leg. By the time he realized the cause, and thus the fact that his muscle tissue was dying, his leg was already gone to hell. Lisa Cuddy was his attending doctor and recommended amputation, but House "liked his leg" and refused. He went through an alternative procedure instead, but it caused him extreme pain until House fell into a coma. Stacy made the decision, since House wasn't able, to go through with a surgery that risked gangrene because it cut out the dying portion of his thigh muscle. Luckily, House lived, but he was no longer able to trust Stacy, and they parted ways.
The surgery left him with pain for the rest of his life, so this required him to use a cane to walk as well as take a pain-killing medication, Vicodin Dolorium. Over time, House became addicted to the drug, and while he realizes this, he doesn't care because the Dolorium lets him function. He tried working in a few hospitals and clinics, but he always got fired because of his tendency to ignore the rules and his oh-so-charming personality. Thus, luck threw him at the most prestigious hospital in Ivona because Lisa Cuddy had become the person in charge.
House had two teams working under him in this position. The first was Eric Foreman, Allison Cameron, and Robert Chase. Together, they fight germs! House even briefly goes on a date with Cameron, but it doesn't work out. Instead, issues come when a wealth aristocrat donates a large sum of money to the hospital. This aristocrat, Edward Vogler, hates House at first site. Naturally, House doesn't even care, but Vogler tries to assert his control. They have battles of stubbornness, which ends up with Cameron briefly resigning and Vogler threatening to fire House's best friend, Wilson. Luckily, Cuddy stands up for them both, and they lose the money but remain ~*~best friends forever~*~ and Cameron even comes back.
Shortly after that, a person from House's past returns: Stacy. She comes to see House, but not for nostalgia's sake. She came to him to ask him to diagnose her sick husband. He can't decide whether he wants to take her case or not, admitting jealousy of her husband. When House does decide to do some tests, though, they all come back negative. Yet his symptoms are getting worse, which House thinks is because he's dying. House cures her husband, but leaves him disabled for a while. But despite that, Stacy, now an attorney, starts working at the hospital. Because House is bad, obviously they spend a lot of time together, and House starts to have his romantic (or as much as he can have) feelings return. Yet as he gets closer and she accepts House more than her sick husband, House decides to push her away, making her go back to her husband.
Things go on normally until one of House's former patient's husband comes to visit House, and he gets shot, going to the ICU. Of course, the shooter blamed House for his wife's suicide, but whatever. House now has street cred, gets to be a little crazy, life goes on. At least until he gets a difficult as in "House finds him annoying" patient, Detective Michael Tritter. Tritter gets pissed, and at first threatens to sue House, but House won't let himself be bullied. House gets caught by Tritter for breaking a trivial law. Tritter arrests House for drug possession, which was his somewhat-legally-prescribed drugs, sigh. Wilson bails out House, but Tritter searches House's apartment and finds House's stash. And House gets more charges, sigh.
After that, Tritter starts to pressure House's co-workers to testify against House. It works, kind of, but the real kicker comes when Tritter finds out that House actually was getting some of his precious drug supply illegally. He almost gets sentenced for being a druggie, but Cuddy stands up for House, and the judge realizes that it's more likely that Tritter has a grudge, so the charges are dismissed. Work continues as normal, or at least until Foreman resigns. He cites his reasons as he "didn't want to be like House". Cuddy and Wilson try to convince House to get Foreman to stay, but grumpy old House fires Chase for no real reason. But he says it's because Chase "learnt enough". Because of romance between them, Cameron resigns to follow Chase.
Of course, that's no good, Cuddy forces House to hire a new team. House rounds up forty applicants that don't annoy the crap out of him. Because House is an eccentric kind of guy, he decides to do this reality show style, with eliminations and everything. He ends up hiring Chris Taub, Lawrence Kutner, and Remy Hadley, who House refers to only as "Thirteen" because that was her applicant number and he never really bothered to look at her file. Oh House. Foreman also stays on the team. One of the applicants, Amber Volakis, who House affectionately refers to as "Cutthroat Bitch", had been dating Wilson.
This upsets House because he fears that classic saying "bros before hos" is being violated. Wilson had been dating her for several months and didn't tell House. So House makes fun of/tortures Wilson about the relationship, but it only gets worse. House goes out to a strip club and gets super smashed. Amber came to pick him up in Wilson's car, since Wilson was able to afford one, but the car malfunctions, and House ends up with a concussion and Amber gravely injured. She ends up dying from organ failure, and dies in Wilson's arms.
House and Wilson's friendship fragments, and though Wilson wants to blame House for her death, he can't. At the same time, House feels guilty for her death. It's too much for Wilson, and he leaves the hospital, making House miserable for losing a friend. However, House can't really handle it, and hires a PI to stalk Wilson, basically. In the meantime, House's father dies, and House finds out that his father was not actually his father. Oops. Wilson does go to the funeral with House, and they reconcile. Wilson decides to come back to the hospital, so there's that at least.
However, things started going downhill from there. House's addiction was getting worse, and with the guilt of Amber's death, House starts hallucinating her. It's aggravated even further when Kutner commits suicide, and House starts to hallucinate him as well as he gets progressively worse. Eventually, he realizes how his addiction is crippling him, and leaves the hospital to "get help". House disappears for a year, travelling through both Ivona and Vohemar as a nomad doctor of sorts. He returns to Ivona with his addiction much more under control, but he couldn't get away from his desire to solve the puzzles of medicine--House decided to enlist on the Victoria II as a doctor