House het ficathon entry: Dissonance, W/J

[bironic]

Fic!

My entry for the House Het Ficathon: Wilson/Julie, Julie/OMC (Oh God, who'd've thought?), and House/Wilson if you want it to be there. PG-13, 3,700 words.

Comments of all sorts welcome, including criticism.

Comments

[imsane_honest]

Much love for this story!

I always marvel at people who can present Julie in a human way. More often than not I think people are content to let her simply be a horrible excuse for a decent person rather than give her character depth and motives that aren't completely malevolent.

You've managed to make it clear that both parties were at fault here, without making either seem cruel or 'evil'.

Again, much love.

Thanks for writing! Very enjoyable!

[bironic]

Thanks! One of the trickiest aspects of this story was to make sure both Wilson and Julie were sympathetic without being entirely innocent. Toss in the fact that all we know about Julie comes from Wilson (and on occasion House), and this was quite the challenge. I'm so glad it worked for you.

[viciouswishes]

Excellent fic. You do a wonderful job with the complexities and humanity of each character. Rec'd on house_notice.

[bironic]

Thank you! I'm so flattered. I'm just getting into the House scene on LJ and your comm has had some great links.

[subluxate]

The tightness of this writing is excellent. You maintain just the right tension throughout, and the reader can sympathize with both Wilson and Julie, not precisely placing the blame on either. Your symbolism, too, with the concerto and the piano music, is powerful; it ties together all that's right and real about Julie's affair, and compares it to Wilson's small gestures that, while solid (chocolate and roses) are nonetheless intangible, because they lack basis.

I'll be linking this when I do tonight's house_news post, and reccing it in my journal.

[subluxate]

Incidentally, are you planning to post this to any of the communities, such as housefic or house_wilson?

[bironic]

Um, I'm certainly going to consider it now! I'm pretty new to House fandom (though not to the show) and am still learning the ropes, as it were, of the various comms. As a primarily W/J story I suppose this would be more appropriate for housefic than for house_wilson -- though, as I just told amazonqueenkate, H/W did seep in anyway....

[subluxate]

house_wilson is for the dynamic between them, not just slash, so it would work there, too.

[bironic]

Hm, perhaps not the only logical conclusion, but certainly a common one. [/cynicism]

Thank you. I do think House hangs (well, hung) heavy over Wilson's marriage even after you account for the show being so House-centric, but at the same time I didn't want this to turn into a story about House and Wilson because it was, you know, a Wilson/Julie request for a het ficathon. But darn it if that pair doesn't sneak into everything.

Yay papers on Eliot! Wilson's allusion and House's response were actually the first lines I wrote for this fic, before I knew I'd be doing the "Burnt Norton"/"Waste Land" excerpts.

[bironic]

I hope so too, but I have seen one disintegrate in a similar way and am trying to see it as a cautionary tale. Hopefully all you need is a deep understanding of one another going in

[pun]

I am blown away by this story. The writing is seriously excellent. The characterization of House and Wilson is perfect, and the characterization of Julie is sympathetic and believable. I can already tell that this is one of those stories that I will get mixed up with canon. I'll find myself thinking, now, they told us that Julie left Wilson for a piano player, right? Or I'll wonder if they showed the part where House and Wilson ate sandwiches on the couch at the end of "Sex Kills" or not.

I adore the contrast of Wilson's inability to name a turning point, and Julie's precise dating of the demise of the marriage. On the one hand, it demonstrates beautifully what is reinforced throughout the fic, that Wilson just isn't paying attention, that Julie really is not his primary concern. Yet on the other hand, you know that relationships aren't like that. That with hindsight one can name a turning point, but really something else could have happened to change the course of events

[bironic]

Thank you. So much. That is probably the best compliment you could give, saying that you will mix it up with canon. And coming from the H/W ship manifesto guru, no less! Really, thank you.

Finding those lines in "Burnt Norton" was the bolt of inspiration behind the part about both of them looking back and seeing 'where things went wrong.' You're exactly right about the psychology there. I do think Julie is the sort of person who would latch onto an event or two and find a way to blame Wilson for ruining their relationship, while Wilson would look back at the whole marriage as vaguely doomed from the start.

I tried to depict the scenes in Wilson's office and House's apartment as they could have happened had they been included in "Skin Deep" and "Sex Kills." I'm very, very happy that you think they fit so well.