#a trapper complex will do that to you

[ninjafuuzz]

the evil stache bj propaganda

[youngpettyqueen]

BJ and Trapper would have the most insufferable but lovable frat bro energy as a duo and nothing will ever convince me otherwise

[variousqueerthings]

skip black sails season 1 this and skip mash seasons 1-3 that, it simply seems odd to not watch the establishing parts of a story the first time you watch said story because they aren’t as polished as later on (as they’re busy doing the establishing part), under the guise of considering them “less progressive”

[remyfire]

The true endgame ship of the Some Things Are Evergreen series is BJ/Hawk/Peg/Trapper purely because as a sadist, it is delightfully satisfying to me to think about BJ finally getting home after a brief last-minute reassignment, and his wife is there, and his boyfriend is there, and they're getting along so fucking well, and his daughter calls Beej Daddy this time, thank you very much, not anybody else, and they can all get appointments with psychiatrists and start healing and making their way through life, and the happily ever after is right there in their grasp.

And BJ is sitting down for coffee with Hawk while Peg and Erin are bringing the mail in. The sun is shining. The curtain's about to close on the stage. BJ is opening up a medical journal, Hawk is opening a thick envelope from Daniel, and that's when the forwarded letter from one J. McIntyre falls into Hawk's lap, and BJ rips his journal in half—

[beej-honnecticutt]

Further explanations in the tags! 🫶🏼

[cedarin]

Heyyy i really like your tf2 caveman au, I also really like the engineer from tf2 so I was thinking about how he would go about it and I think he would be like a trapper, I don’t think you can make one to one copy’s of his machines but like traps and maybe he could have an little thing rigged up so when you step on a little thing it fires a mountain of arrows at y’a. Idk trapper engie

( also I really like the pyro design, especially thinking of pyro doing the fire breathing thing and it coming outta the mask so they look more like a dragon then a man )

HIhi thank you so much I'm really glad you like my au and my designs!

Actually im keeping engineer for last cause hes gonna be the hardest one to create. I already got so many suggestions reddit and tiktok so here are my very rough ideas.

Dispenser- i feel the dispenser would be some kind of totem. i like they idea "horn of plenty" like imagine a skull that gives the mercs bones, rocks to repair their weapons and also meat to heal them. Or just simply shaman magic healing them.

Sentry- now sentry is a bit tricky. People on reddit suggested he would tame animals , but I want to keep his craftiness in my au so yes the traps seem like the best way.

One of my huge inspirations for this au is Far Cry Primal and there is one character "Wogah" that creates traps and is also really crafty like engi so i might base engi on him.

I think making a trap that shoots arrows is far too complex, but the part with rigged thing i like that.

Teleporter- straight up shaman powers, just a totem that teleports you when you step inside it.

[regular-gnome]

I love the new comic so much! Not only is it breathtaking on its own, but it adds delicious moral complexity to the collection incomplete verse. The Archivists eliminating all the titans is still very much not a good thing, but now we can see that the titans were far from paragons of virtue. Subjugating and extracting tribute from the populace. The titans may have considered themselves benevolent overlords, but overlords all the same.

Just this one comic gives a window into why the locals might have been down with joining the Archivists hunting the titans down. Conflict is so much more interesting when neither side is fully right or wrong and I'm thrilled to see this will be so much more complicated than "Archivists bad, Titans good,".

super happy you enjoyed it:P it took aaaa while to finish

But yeah, something I found interesting is that with creatures like Titans living among witches, there is a clear power imbalance between them, something that has many ways to go about. Especially considering how differently they are perceived by two groups of witches. On the Boiling Isles, they were seen as a source of all that's good amazing kind creatures of immense power, while Titan Trappers talked about them more like monsters. I like the idea there were societies or cults built around differnt titans, and the differences between how everyone interacted were more based on the personalities of those involved - leading to diffrent views on titans by the groups. And I know a cult focused on killing titans isn't going to be a source of reliable information on the titans. This is more about how they might have been perceived to make space for a third party to convince a group that murder isn't such a bad idea (it is, please don't)

Another thing is that all characters are people, not in the "humans" sense but there arent really levels of sentience. All characters have their own minds, whether they are titans, archivists, witches, etc. It's just different circumstances and abilities, and if the stakes were smaller and everyone was forced to sit down and reflect on what they were doing, it might have ended up much less deadly

The screens are from King's tales of his past that were very much kids imagination, but I like the idea that somewhere in Kings nursery those depitons were drawn showing a diffrent titan and it fueled his story. Debatable if it was an accurate and not a demonised depition though

[trueshredguitar]

I saw your post tags about transitioning would save Hawkeye pierce and I’m very curious, say more (if you’d like)

hawkeye has a lot of scenes that convey gender nonconformity under a humorous lens. sometimes it’s scenes implying that he’s sexually or romantically attracted to men; these scenes aren’t just “haha he’s expressing attraction to men,” they’re often based around the premise of hawkeye being a wife, being a woman, being pursued/“claimed,” and a shocking amount of references to pregnancy? see: “i know you’re a general and i’m just a captain but i wanna have your baby! i’ll kiss all your stars!”

i.e. the joke being made is about hawkeye liking men but it’s RARELY phrased as him being a homosexual man, it’s OFTEN phrased as him being a heterosexual woman

and sometimes it’s simply scenes calling him a girl or making references to him being soft/feminine/emasculated. often times he will make these jokes HIMSELF and call himself an aunt, a mother, a girl, demure or other adjectives that women were socialized to aspire to in the era. his friends will often refer to him like this without any hint of mocking, just lightheartedness (trapper referring to him as “miz hawkeye”)

i apologize that i don’t have the links right now but if you go into my archive and look in my “mash” tag there are video compliations of a lot of these moments, and the compliations don’t even include all of them

also imo these moments hawkeye has a) contrast with klinger’s relationship to his femininity/gender nonconformity, as he is all about playing with outward presentation, and b) compare with margaret’s relationship to HER gender. which, margaret’s gender by itself is an absolutely wildly progressive examination of womanhood where she is allowed to be “masculine” in many aspects of her life while still asserting herself that she is a WOMAN and always will be despite what she does, or how her life, career, or personality looks. that SHE is the arbiter and determinator of her gender and not how much she keeps into the femininity box. i wish i had concrete examples of why i think this, but it’s been a little bit since i watched the show and i think it’s mostly me reading too much into things

i think also hawkeye’s disassociation issues and complex ptsd is really like. advanced in contrast to other people in the 4077th. he’s the main character for a reason and that’s because he’s the one with the deepest emotional wounds and the drunkest, promiscuous, saddest, most insomniatic doctor in the place. there had been psychological issues in place before he had been sent to korea and none of them were very cut-and-dry as we find.

in conclusion i think the fictional man with noted androgynous presentation who flouts gender conventions as well as masculine army structures and patriarchal power structures and constantly refers to himself as a woman and uses a psuedonym instead of his birth name and has very pronounced psychological issues and self-harming tendencies could be trans in 1950-whatever without good words for it, or be unable to in any way shape or form live authentically, and i think being able to be a woman would have probably made hawkeye’s life just a little bit easier. maybe transitioning wouldn’t save her because estrogen won’t airlift you out of korea but like maybe hawkeye would be a little less buffeted by the outward winds of the world. if any part of the world wouldn’t have buffeted her harder for it, anyways.

i mean, one of mash’s biggest themes at the end of the day is that we’re trapped in the time loop, a small and restrictive and violent thing set up by forces outside of our control that will hurt us if we defy them or dare to do anything the loop doesn’t already contain. and it hurts everyone, all the time, and no one knows why we keep doing it, only that we have to. and hawkeye’s the central victim of this. the time loop is war, the time loop is gender, the time loop is the american empire, the time loop is religion, the time loop is being who you are, forever, as They have forced you to be

[lola-andheruniverse]

WIP Saturday - Caryl Fanfiction Rec

Dear fellow carylers, today's WIP is a fic that I'm slowly consuming because it's so damn poetically eerie I keep going back and forth, rereading and contemplating passages. A Resting Echo, written by @thegratefulsouth, is posted on 9Lives and AO3.

Summary: Years after leaving Ed, Carol buys a haunted house in Maryville, East Georgia. Daryl, who is making a living as a hunter and trapper, selling furs and other animal products, lives next door. AU Non ZA

Rated: E Word count: 54.456 (11 chapters of?) Published: May 28, 2024 - WIP Our author is doing such a good job with this story! It's very emotional and full of rich detail and imagery, so you as the reader can become truly absorbed by what our favorite characters are experiencing. The way Carol and Daryl connect is as endearing as interesting. I love how drawn they are to each other and how important Carol's haunted cabin is to their bond. Also, I'm only on chapter five and it's great that some secondary characters from TWD have already appeared to enrich the story (Alden! *o* Eugene!). But the most important participation of all is hers and hers alone: ​​Sophia. But not any Sophia, an adult Sophia! Imagining her all grown-up and having a full (albeit complex) relationship with her mother is incredibly touching. For this reason alone, this WIP is a must-read.

Please, go read it, dear fellow caryler. And, if you can, leave a review/kudos. I'm sure it'll be deeply appreciated.

[thebreakfastgenie]

Hawkeye for the character ask game please ❤️

How I feel about this character

"Character of all time" is perhaps played out, but... I love this character. He's complex and interesting and shaped like that. He's one of my favorite characters ever. He's from Maine! He has one of the best character names of all time.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Margaret

Frank

Trapper

Charles

Bigelow

Carlye (not endgame)

Inga

I'm also a big fan of Hawkeye/OC, especially Female OC but Male OC too

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Hawkeye and Trapper probably takes the cake, but I also love his dynamics with Radar, Klinger, and Sidney.

My unpopular opinion about this character

This is tricky because there's a lot of fanon that I agree with the broad strokes of but disagree with the details, or feel it's taken too far. I'm a fan of exploring his trauma; I think he has PTSD and he's still going to have an adjustment, but I don't think he's a broken bird.

I don't think he's overly political. I don't think he's read theory, I don't think he throws around words like imperialism. He certainly has political opinions but I don't think they're ovelry sophisticated. I think he's much more of a mainstream liberal than a leftist and he's definitely not a communist (though people like Flagg would call him one). I think his strong anti-war feelings come from a more basic moral place of hating death and violence and his anti-bigotry views come from a similar place. I think that's an important part of his character, because the show is trying to say that the horror of war should transcend politics, that everyone should be as horrified by it as Hawkeye is.

I don't think he's especially feminine, I think he has a lot of masculine traits and he's a man who's very comfortable in his masculinity which makes him willing to explore more feminine traits too, because he's not afraid of being "less" of a man. I think most of his gender-nonconformity is about about rebelling against authority much more than gender expression. Even his more feminine traits feel like more of a statement of what a man is allowed to be.

I don't think he's a bottom and I hate the bratty bottom characterization (he's vers; I can buy bottom-leaning but he definitely enjoys topping).

The last thing he would ever do is sit around pining for someone who wasn't available. I don't think fandom consciously characterizes him as a pining love martyr, but a lot of ship fic/fanon relies on that characterization, so it's very popular.

I don't think he was wrong in Fallen Idol, Commander Pierce, or Bottle Fatigue, but I don't think he's a saint who's never wrong.

I think a lot of his friends treat him badly in the later seasons, especially 8-11, and he doesn't deserve it.

I'm not sure what the popular view on this is these days but I feel very strongly that Hawkeye was raised culturally New England protestant but agnostic.

I think he wants to get married and have kids someday, just not yet, and he probably does eventually.

Of course, my least popular opinion is that he has no romantic feelings for BJ whatsoever.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I wish he'd gotten a medal! You could get a great storyline out of his attempts to avoid it. Unlike BJ's bronze star storyline, it wouldn't be out of guilt, it would be purely because he doesn't want to be honored by the military.

[quordleona03]

Trapper- 1, 2, 7, random number

Charles- 1, 2, 7, random number

Trapper - 1, 2, 7, 10

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

I like Trapper's enthusiasm. I think he's adorable when he goes "WA-HEY!" over something he likes. I like his dedication as a doctor. I like how fond he is of his kids, and that he really does try to be nice to Frank Burns (I don't think Frank is worth it, but I like it that Trapper tries). I dislike his casual unfaithfulness to his wife. I dislike his casual sexualisation of Margaret Houlihan. (I think it's telling that after Aid Station when Hawkeye says that Margaret was great, Trapper leaps straight to the assumption that means he had sex with her.) 2. Favorite canon thing about this character? Trapper organised immunisations for all the local kids, and was canonically the doctor the locals went to for help when they needed something. 7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

I like the fandom interpretation of Trapper as in love with Hawkeye. (I'm not sure Trapper was in love with Hawkeye - or at least not sure Trapper knew it - but I really like it in fandom when Trapper is in love with Hawkeye and knows it.) 10. Could you be best friends with this character?

No. I don't think Trapper could be best friends with a woman. Whether or not you read him as queer, I think he's very definitely homosocial - women are for sex, men are for friendship. I don't think he even sees his wife as a friend.

Charles - 1, 2, 7. 22

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

I like Charles because he's intelligent, hard working, honourable, polite, and - within limits - kind. I dislike Charles because he's an arrogant upper-class racist bigot who doesn't believe in paying taxes.

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

That Charles will kill with hot knives anyone who hurts his sister Honoria. My headcanon about what "cousin Alfred" did was mock Honoria for stuttering, whereupon he was dead to Charles forever. I like it that Charles's fondness for Honoria extends to standing up against anyone who tries to bully someone for having a stutter. I also like that Charles has, I think, come to regard Margaret Houlihan as next thing to a sister - I think that neither of them have quite parsed this, even by GFA, but I see the two of them as continuing to have the same kind of solid relationship Charles has with Honoria - even though Margaret is lower-class and Irish, both of which Charles despises. 7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

Make Charles fall in love with Klinger. I think Charles in love with Klinger is adorable. Even though I read Charles as heterosexual.

22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to ths character? Something you don't like?

Charles Emerson Winchester III is a fantastic character. Unlike Frank Burns, he could never become a two-dimensional villain. He is quite thoroughly bigoted and he never gets a redemption arc - his liking/respect for Margaret will never change the fact that he regards the Irish as and the lower classes as intrinsically inferior - he just makes an exception for Margaret because she's his friend. He's arrogant and conceited but he is able to see and acknowledge that he got something wrong. He clearly genuinely enjoys the company of women - and thinks little girls are adorable - but he's a sexist bigot as well as a racist bigot. Except when provoked (and Hawkeye and BJ and Potter all do quite a bit of provoking) he clearly aims to be punctiliously polite, even to his inferiors - but he regards everyone at the 4077th as his inferior, even if he has a gradual, grudging respect for the surgical abilities of his fellow surgeons. I like stories which explore all that complexity about Charles! I dislike stories which try to tone it down to make him more likable. Charles is a fascinating mix of the deeply unpleasant and the likeable and the charming and the arrogant - and nothing is more certain (to me) that once he got out of Korea, while he'd continue to regard Margaret as a friend (and probably Hawkeye too) - everyone else is just someone he'd as soon forget ever existed. Ask meme

[chaigirly]

Egon Spengler

Oh my good looking boy ⬅️ Link

Preview ⤵️

Saying you loved Egon was an understatement.

You adored this man with your whole heart, even if you didn’t understand most of the things he’d talk about it.

“So how do the ghost trappers work exactly?” You ask, walking with Egon downstairs to load todays catch into the containment unit.

You knew that would spark one of his rants, going on about things you couldn’t even repeat due to the complexity of his vocabulary.

You didn’t care though, it was intentional.

Just because you didn’t get it didn’t mean you couldn’t listen and try to understand.

Plus you loved his voice and the little glimmer in his eyes whenever he talked about something he was passionate about.

“When they’re activated by spiritual energy, they generate a localized electromagnetic field that attracts and captures spectral entities.

The trap opens to create a containment vortex, which, assisted by our proton streams, draws the ghost inside.

Once captured, the trap seals automatically, securing the ghost within a stable containment grid to prevent its escape,” he says as if it was common knowledge and you hadn’t zoned out while staring at him.

Oh he was so cute when he talked about anything to do with spiritual activity.

This hadn’t been the first time you had asked him about it and it certainly wouldn’t be the last time either.

How could you not?

He loved talking to you about it even if he knew you didn’t completely understand.

And you loved listening to him.

Well, staring at him and daydreaming would be more accurate.

———————————

[majorbaby]

What are your favourite things about Margaret Houlihan?

I like that she's a complex character with a very diverse arc. She's good and kind yes, she's also insufferable and cruel at times.

I personally liked her best as an antagonist, but I like when she's a hero to, and in that role, Loretta/Margaret could be villain and hero at the same time just by virtue of taking up so much space, despite the fact that Gelbart and Reynolds gave much of her MASH (1970) role to Frank Burns. Everyone knows it's Margaret calling the shots, and so the production reflects the plot and I love that shit - can we not almost immediately tell that Frank Burns will run his course, but Margaret Houlihan will go on to grow and continue to be a force in a new way?

so even though i love her as a villain, in this case, I place more value on what she and Loretta brought to primetime american television audiences than what I as an individual want. More on that some other time.

I like that she's self-aware, and the show is aware of that too. It makes the transition from early to late-seasons Margaret feel natural, rather than shoe-horned in. She knows she's changed. She reflects on her past relationships (Stars and Stripes) and her past selves (Comrades in Arms pt. 2).

I like that it makes so much fucking sense for her to have such dramatic character development because she's done it before: Lorraine Anderson remarks how much Margaret has changed when they're reunited. Are you Now, Margaret tells us that Margaret was apparently hanging out with young "undesirables" and perhaps even was one herself at some point, rubbing shoulders with communists and having car sex with her college boyfriend. And I like that she then grows up to be Frank Burns' sidechick, homewrecker, repressed hot mess... the poorest of poor little meow meows. A blorbo if I ever had one.

I like that she's kinky.

I like that she's a foil to Hawkeye but she's also his equal in loving without fear or reservation. I love that every time she does that, it blows up in her face, but it's still clear to us that she'll do it as many times as it takes to find the real thing. I like that just like Hawkeye, by the end of the show I'm confident that she's going to be just fine.

I like that whenever Margaret is on screen, it's clear to me that she wants something and she's going to do whatever she can in her power to get that thing. I especially like when that "thing" that she wants is something more for herself. That "wanting something and going for it" is what makes her main character material. I like that she's a main character and you kind of get that sense no matter how often she's relegated to supporting cast. She and Klinger are alike in that way.

I like that she fucks Hawkeye when she's still married to Donald. I like that she doesn't fuck Trapper even though she's attracted to him, because she loves Frank. I like that she fucks Frank outdoors, in supply, behind supply and in the x-ray room. I like that she fucks.

I like that she leaves. She leaves Frank, Donald and Scully. I like that it's easy to extrapolate her leaving a man who can't offer what she deserves in exchange for her loyalty, love and dedication, to her one day leaving the military.

I'd like to say I'd watch a whole show about Margaret, but because of her enormous, demanding presence on MASH, it feels as though I've already done that.

[captainhunnicutt]

8, 14, 17, 18 for BJ please 🙏 ♥️

Oh gosh. I just looked at the questions and... I hope I don't fuck this up. Thanks for asking, lovely.

8.) What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

I genuinely don't understand a few things the fandom does when it comes to BJ, and it may just be because I am still relatively new to the idea of "fandom" in general. I'm all for having fun and enjoying the "thing" however one sees fit, so I'm actively not trying to shit on anything here. I just truly don't understand the "Trapper Complex" or the takes on how "big of a liar," BJ is.

I understand that I am bias. I'm a Beejgirl. Always have been and always will be, but I also am capable of admitting he's got his own share of faults. I, personally, don't think lying is one of them. I think it's exaggerated, maybe for funnies? Again, I don't understand it.

I can maybe, sort of, attempt to understand the "Trapper Complex," but I think that's been blown out of proportion as well. I think what people really are seeing is BJ struggling to cope with the idea that he isn't unique in the situation. He's a draftee. He's a guy in green clothes and a guy in white clothes. He was brought over to do a job. He's friends with Hawkeye. He sleeps in the Swamp. He's stuck in Korea until told otherwise. All of the things that Trapper did already. The only difference is Trapper went home, and as a result BJ came. It's jealousy in the sense that "him and I are truly no different except he is where I want to be," and that's a hard pill to swallow.

That probably doesn't make sense. ANYWAY!

14.) Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character.

I don't know. Whatever the first two guys are wearing. He probably has that sort of coat but he would cinch the waist more, right?

17.) What's a ship for this character you don't hate but it's not your favorite that you're fine with?

It's not even really a ship but Aggie and BJ. I am forever bitter we didn't actually see that happen. If we mean like characters that aren't one offs... maybe BJ and his hand. Let him have some sort of release.

18.) How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire?

I am SO glad this question got asked, because it allows me to briefly touch on a relationship that I never talk about. Potter and BJ.

I've always felt like Potter and BJ have this weird unspoken bond. Have you ever started a job on the same day as someone else, and you two just always have that connection? Potter and BJ came in to a situation where everything had been flipped upside down. They had to find their footing while navigating the complexity of having lost two loved members of the 4077.

Potter is the one who calmed BJ down in the OR when BJ started panicking. It was like he instinctively took this kid under his wing, but in a way that wasn't placating or demeaning. His authority came from a place of caring and concern and that made all the difference in the world.

There's only a handful of times throughout the series, where Potter calls BJ "BJ." He almost always calls him "Hunnicutt." The exact opposite of Hawkeye (though, somewhere in early/mid-season 4 it switches from "BJ" to "Beej," and then whenever Hawkeye calls him "BJ" it feels weird, but I digress.) And when he uses Beej's name, it's always laced with concern. It feels like a father trying to get a son to open up and talk to him, and BJ never does. "Bombshells," is one of the more notable times this happens, and the look on Potter's face is really telling.

I think Potter had love for all of the maniacs that we know and love, and I won't sit here and say he loved one more than another. He had very special relationships with all of them - but there's something with BJ that is both intriguing and painful, and it constantly makes me want more.

[boscoebros]

The Charm of Northern Exposure, Summed Up in 10 Episodes

Plucking out individual best episodes of Northern Exposure is like ranking individual cups pulled from the same expertly spiked punch. It’s not impossible to do, it just feels not in the spirit of the gift you’ve been given or the eccentrically twinkling host who’s presented it to you.

Of course, Northern Exposure, the tale of petulant young New York Jewish doctor Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow) sent against his will to the beyond-tiny town of Cicely, Alaska as payment for his med school debts, has its odd sour draught or two during its six-seasons.

Quirk can turn twee with just a single wrong step. From the start, the series, created by St. Elsewhere vets Joshua Brand and John Falsey (with executive production help by future Sopranos don David Chase) presented unsuspecting CBS viewers with a much headier and more ambitious formula than its fish-out-of-water premise suggested. That degree of difficulty, which only increased in each of the series’s six seasons, meant taking big creative swings.

The town of Cicely was quickly established as a haven for eccentrics of all stripes, from frostbitten locals with colorful backwoods backstories to transplants in various stages of flight; from old lives too fraught or too comfortably suburban for their liking, to the region’s Native population, whose culture and individuality were allowed far more complexity than on any American TV show at the time.

Installed in a crumbling storefront office with a largely monosyllabic Native receptionist named Marilyn Whirlwind (stealth series MVP Elaine Miles), the constantly kvetching Joel immediately began sparring with Maggie O’Connell (Janine Turner), the equally combative bush pilot (and Joel’s unimpressed landlord) in the sort of will-they/won’t-they relationship that, like Joel’s predicament, gradually receded in favor of fleshing out the series’s roster of singular figures.

Roaring over the town was Barry Corbin’s barrel-chested Maurice Minnifield, a former Oklahoma astronaut, millionaire, and bona fide American man’s man drawn to the untamed tundra as blank slate for his singular vision of an “Alaskan Riviera” hewn in his own stubborn image. Greeting the irascible Joel were everyone from a legendary sexagenarian animal trapper turned (mostly) pacifist barkeep, Holling Vincoeur (John Cullum) and his spacey but worldly 18-year-old former beauty pageant girlfriend Shelley (Cynthia Geary); aged and resolutely sensible town shopkeep, postmistress, and all-purpose town official Ruth-Anne (Peg Phillips); philosophizing ex-con turned all-day radio DJ Chris (John Corbett); and perpetually amiable half-Indian teen and aspiring filmmaker Ed Chigliak (Darren E. Burrows).

As the series progressed, Joel’s predicament persisted (he’d essentially been dragooned into Cicely by Maurice over his expected post in an Anchorage hospital) but sank back into ensemble status, with each character in turn bobbing up to take the show’s delightfully unpredictable center stage. (Whether due to his diminished role or contract disputes, Morrow chafed in his first series lead, eventually leaving partway through the sixth and final season.)

New oddballs emerged to fill out Cicely’s ranks: Adam Arkin’s mysteriously obnoxious master chef/mountain man Adam and his heiress hypochondriac wife Eve (Valerie Mahaffey), Anthony Edward’s bubble-bound lawyer Mike Monroe, fled to Alaska ahead of encroaching environmental allergies, Graham Greene’s Native medicine man and artist Leonard, Richard Cummings’ Bernard, revealed as Chris’ long lost Black half brother, and sharing the pair’s preternatural psychic bond.

Throughout it all, Falsey and Brand steered Northern Exposure according to their own set of wide-open, anything goes constellations. Dream sequences, strange local traditions and superstitions (Maggie’s old lovers have all died in unusual circumstances), singular personal obsessions and quests — anything could happen in Cicely. And, with astounding reliability, the results were as warm, weird, and welcoming as the people of Cicely themselves.

With the series at long last available to stream (all six seasons are on Prime Video), we’ve put together a list of 10 favorite episodes drawn from Northern Exposure’s heady brew of comedy, drama, and enduring whimsy, in broadcast order. Drink up.

"Aurora Borealis: A Fairy Tale for Big People" (Season 1, Episode 8)

By the time this first season finale aired, it was already crystal clear that Cicely didn’t need any outside help in the strangeness department. That doesn’t stop a massive full moon and the appearance of the shimmering-with-portent northern lights from putting a double-whammy on the town’s inhabitants. Some can’t sleep, others are drawn on mysterious walkabouts, and a confused, citified accountant from Portland shows up on a brand new Harley and immediately latches onto Chris’ barroom talk of the collective unconscious, with the mismatched pair gradually realizing that they share the same absent father.Northern Exposure tosses a lot into each episode’s hearty stew, and this was one of the first episodes to find the perfect balance of soulfulness, incident, and knockabout comedy.

"The Big Kiss" (Season 2, Episode 2)

Darren E. Burrows (son of perennial B-movie bad guy Billy Drago) is Cicely’s most endearing figure as Ed Chigliak, a patiently unassuming and guileless presence whose clouded backstory as a half-Native, half-white foundling the would-be Scorsese accepts from his tribal elders with typical resignation. At least until a 256-year-old Native spirit guide named One Who Waits (legendary character actor Floyd Red Crow Westerman) appears to no one but him and tells Ed he might just have a bead on the identities of Ed’s parents.

It’s to Northern Exposure’s credit that we can accept the reality of the delightfully deadpan One Who Waits, or not. But Ed’s ultimately fruitless journey is as resonant either way, his rapport with the old ghost registering in Burrows’ performance with aching sincerity and sweetness. One Who Waits would return in Season 4, and Westerman is always a gift, but that episode’s more concrete conclusion to Ed’s story pales next to the lovely ambiguity of his roadside encounter with a friendly older Native man in “The Big Kiss.”

"War and Peace" (Season 2, Episode 6)

While Northern Exposure would stretch its woozy reality in all manner of ways throughout its run, it never did so as straightforwardly or delightfully than in this tale of a famed Russian singer Nikolai Ivanovich Appollanov (Elya Baskin) whose intermittent appearances in Cicely are greeted with delight by everyone — except the Cold War patriotic Maurice. Challenged to renew their one-sided chess rivalry, perennial loser Maurice accuses the gentlemanly Russian of cheating, leading to a duel where the series’s typical spell of whimsical benevolence seems headed for inevitable, bloody disaster. Meanwhile, Ed’s first love with a randy preacher’s daughter sees the heartstruck teen turning to ladies man Chris for some Cyrano-style flowery prose, with similarly doomed results.

That both stories turn out unexpectedly more or less okay is a relief, although Ed’s heartbroken confrontation with the contrite and more worldly Chris is about as emotionally rough as Ed gets. The series decided not to spoil things, a decision that was as cheeky as it was refreshingly necessary to a viewing public mired in coverage of another needless overseas war.

"A-Hunting We Will Go" (Season 3, Episode 8)

Northern Exposure’s ostensible lead was one the series’ least successful elements, oddly. Joel’s incessant complaining about his plight might have been understandable, but Morrow struggled with the show’s often inconsistent treatment of the New Yorker’s wavering integration into Cicely’s mix. (The number of times Joel’s episode-ending epiphanies plop him right back into crabapple first position for the next are too numerous to list.) Still, when the show gets the ultra-rational Joel right, it really gets him right, as in this outing where the city boy feels duty-bound to test out his visceral revulsion against the locals’ offhand love of hunting.

Joel goes on the offensive about the “barbaric” bloodsport, only to accept Maggie’s challenge that, without experiencing the phenomenon himself, he’s just blowing hot air. Joining veteran hunters Holling and Chris on a grouse hunt brings Joel unexpected (and long-winded) elation—and then a huge comedown when he comes across the wounded bird he’d only managed to wing. Themes permeate the best Northern Exposure episodes in the slyest of ways. As Joel desperately tries to heal his victim, Ed becomes similarly protective of Ruth-Anne upon learning of her recent 75th birthday. IN the end, both men resign themselves to death’s looming and necessary presence in their own way, with Joel confiding to Maggie how death and killing are two very different things and Ed’s surprise gift to Ruth-Anne seeing the two literally dancing on her grave.

"Burning Down the House" (Season 3, Episode 14)

Opposing forces meet more often than Cicely’s benign exterior suggests, with this third-season installment proving that a community packed with dreamers will occasionally spit out some darker fancies.

When Chris builds a catapult in order to “fling” a live cow in order to create what he terms a “perfect moment,” only Joel objects, the rest of Cicely regarding the stunt with idle curiosity. (After all, as Marilyn states, they’re going to eat the cow.) Throughout the series, this undercurrent of eccentricity edging into rustic anarchy runs through Cicely—it’s like they’re one rough winter away from stuffing Joel into a wicker man. Here, the unfortunate cow is only saved via an artistic quandary, not a moral one, as Ed accidentally reveals how the whole cow-flinging concept has been done in one particular movie. Chris adjusts to a less-lethal concept, with the resulting fling filling the assembled townsfolk (and viewers) with suitably collective awe.

“Three Amigos” (Season 3, Episode 16)

The bond between former astronaut and American hero Maurice Minnifield and legendary game hunter Holling Vincoeur gets the rough and tumble outdoor adventure tale it deserves in this episode where the two old friends and romantic rivals strike out into the wilderness to fulfill the last wish of an old friend. Pros Barry Corbin and John Cullum had career-best roles on Northern Exposure, and they’re never better than here, as the two aging tough guys brave impossible weather and their own aging bodies to bury wild Bill Haney, their longtime drinking, hunting, and brawling buddy at the legendarily treacherous No-Name Point.

Portrayed often as two distinct but similar examples of a dying breed of masculinity, both men ultimately have to concede that dying for your word might not be all it's cracked up to be, especially for two old men with warm beds and, in Holling’s case, Shelly to return to. Willie Nelson on the soundtrack singing “Hands on the Wheel” over scenes the boys’ game attempts to honor an old promise signals an elegiac farewell to an old way of life.

"Cicely" (Season 3, Episode 23)

With its season order expanded after two short first go-rounds, Season 3 gave Northern Exposure even more territory to explore stylistically. A flashback episode might not sound groundbreaking, but this tale of the founding of Cicely reframes everything we thought we knew about Alaska’s most eccentric town, all while lending unexpected insight into its denizens, all of whom pop up in different roles in the reminiscences of a 108-year-old man (veteran actor Roberts Blossom) who Joel accidentally hits with his pickup.

Brought to Joel’s cabin for treatment, the old man spins a yarn about the town’s eventual founders, a pair of lesbian free-thinkers named Jo and Cicely (Jo Anderson and Yvonne Suhor) who fled polite Montana society to create a matriarchal utopia right in the dangerously lawless heart of untamed Alaska. The story of the rough-and-tumble Jo and the delicate Cicely plays out with the tragic heroism of two such forward-thinking (gay, female) dreamers. The town is turned around and only a stray bullet (and some “kill your gays” TV tradition) prevents a completely happy ending. Still, as Joel drops the old man at the graveyard where he’s come to honor Cicely’s 100th birthday, Cicely, Alaska comes that much further into focus.

"Thanksgiving" (Season 4, Episode 8)

The Native population of Northern Exposure is an integral part of the show’s melting pot of oddballs, but this eventful episode adds a needed dose of spice surrounding the outwardly ordinary Indian citizens’ existence in a colonized America. Walking to work, Joel is ambushed with a tomato hurled by the friendly Ed, introducing the yearly tradition by which Cicely’s native population takes out centuries of otherwise sublimated anger and resentment in a symbolically messy assault on the town’s white people.

While the rest of Cicely’s white folks uncomplainingly accept this once a year pelting, Joel complains to Marilyn that his status as a perpetually oppressed Jew should exempt him from the Native’s wrath. It’s when he sinks into an even more miserable than usual depression upon being informed that his intended four-year sentence as Cicely’s general practitioner has been (thanks to inflation) upped another year that Marilyn finally recognizes Joel’s kinship with the town’s Natives.

Listening to the bereft and unshaven doctor’s fetal position lament about his complete and utter lack of hope, Marilyn tells Joel he can now march in the Native’s day of the dead parade. “You’re not white anymore,” coming from the no-bullshit Marilyn, lands with unexpected force on Joel, and us. The people of Cicely, in their insularity, are free to process generations of racial and personal trauma in their own unique manner, and as the whole town, Indian and white, gathers at The Brick for a sumptuous post-parade Thanksgiving feast, Joel is free to complain to the face-painted Ed about his own misfortune in strangely liberating kinship.

"Mister Sandman" (Season 5, Episode 12)

The northern lights are back and everyone’s having each other’s dreams. What sounds like a high-concept lark turns typically thought-provoking and stubbornly resonant, as Maggie jumps into Holling’s revelatory dreams about his horrible, abusive father, Joel sleepwalks into Ruth-Anne’s store with a little boy’s thwarted dreams about bottomless candy, and Maurice becomes incensed when one of a pair of gay B&B proprietors (Doug Ballard’s Ron) discovers Maurice’s secret dreams involving women’s shoes.

There’s plenty to unpack, as with most dreams, and there are laughs aplenty around the margins. But it’s in the townsfolk’s variously grudging willingness to accept that their unpredictable home has yet another metaphysical trick up its sleeve that “Mister Sandman” achieves surprising depth. Holling has long decried his French-Canadian lineage’s legacy of awful behavior, here evincing a revulsion to food tied both to Shelly’s pregnancy and his repressed memories of his mother and father. And Maurice, whose bluff, all-purpose bigotry is never quite offset by his old school macho act, gets into a truly ugly poker table confrontation with Ron and his partner Erick (Don R. McManus) stemming from what he considers these “deviants’” insight into his private thoughts.It’s up to the sage Ruth-Anne to have some frank talk with Maurice about his bigotry, and Joel to overcome his usual skepticism when he sees that Maggie’s recounting of her dream actually assists in treating the despondent Holling.

"The Quest" (Season 6, Episode 15)

Rob Morrow’s desire to leave Northern Exposure (he’d already filmed Robert Redford’s Quiz Show during Season 5) is given a typically strange payoff in his final season fantasy/dream/who-knows final outing. After Joel and Maggie’s on-and-off romance sputtered one too many times, the perpetually disgruntled Joel had left Cicely some episodes earlier, going AWOL on his debts and setting himself up as the GP of an even more upriver Native village. Unexpectedly arriving in the middle of the night at Maggie’s house, the shaggy and wild-eyed doctor unfurls an ancient trapper’s map, claiming to have uncovered the location of the mythical lost city of Kiwa’ani and asking for Maggie to fly him the first leg of his trip to find this magical “jeweled city.”

As far as goodbyes to disgruntled stars go, “The Quest” is a confoundingly thorny metaphysical flight of fancy. With the skeptical Maggie in tow, the obsessed Joel first encounters one of those elderly Japanese soldiers still fighting WWII (and is repaid for his ensuing medical treatment with a bounty of sushi), almost gets sidetracked in an impossible, dreamlike spa in the middle of the Alaskan nowhere, and finally coming across an incongruously locked chain-link bridge fence and the abusive gatekeeper (who looks suspiciously identical to Adam) demanding the answer to an impossible riddle. Joel answers and spies the glittering skyline of his beloved Manhattan in the mists—and he walks into it, and out of Northern Exposure forever.

Is the episode something of a make-the-best-of-it exercise? Maybe. But it’s a great one, perfectly in keeping with the series’ spirit. As Marilyn sense Joel’s departure with a signature, unreadable “Good bye” back in Cicely and Maggie receives a days-later postcard of the Staten Island ferry from Joel reading “New York is a state of mind,” “The Quest” stretches Northern Exposure’s woozy reality to its breaking point while still slotting comfortably—and touchingly — into the show’s world in as satisfying a way as could be hoped.

~ Dennis Perkins || Primetimer

[deanwax]

Could I 👉👈 get an infodump on the world "Cycle's End" is set in? Anything that isn't covered in the story tag. I'm still mentally puking at how Chapter 6 ended, I know in my soul we don't have much time left with Deerfoot but I have a mighty need :>

Of course! I acknowledge that in my efforts to uhhh not write a 250K+ word novel (*side eyes Aure*) I have been a bit more scant on detail than usual!

Cycle's End is set in low-mid magic fantasy world where most flora and fauna are the same and the dominant species is people with pointy ears. Except, the entire continent is also covered in a network of Lodestones. When people enter the radius of a new Lodestone, they’ll be consciously drawn to it to make their mark on it, which can be done with clay or with a crystal. Once their mark is made, it stays there until the maker leaves the radius of the Lodestone and enter the next, then the process repeats.

Lodestones cover a large distance, maybe like a 25 mile/50km radius. While it's common for Lodestones to be the centres of towns and cities, there are small ones out in the wilderness like the setting of Cycle’s End. A Lodestone will actually grow in size the more marks that are made on it. The largest city in the land has a Lodestone so tall it requires scaffolding to reach the upper heights of it. So it's kind of like the land is full of magical living rocks, which is important to remember for later.

People have a pretty rich culture around this process of marking Lodestones. The majority of people make their mark using animal feet, and which foot you have says a LOT about you - it's probably the most important factor by which you're judged, socially. It also determines your ‘surname’, which is why Deerfoot refers to themselves as Deerfoot while they're still in a period of gender transition and haven't decided on a new first name yet.

The type of foot you have (the first one, anyway) is usually determined by the family you're born into. For example, Deerfoot comes from a family of trappers so their family taught them how to trap deer. Fishtails tend to stick together, farmers tend to be Goathoofs or Pigtrotters or even Chickenfeet, etc. You can change your foot at any time - but it matters how you get it. Basically, the only two acceptable ways are to kill the animal yourself and take the foot (and everything else - it’s very much a “use all the parts” culture), or to bond with the animal and simply take the foot when it dies before proceeding with a burial. So for someone to be a Wolfpaw, it meant they either fought and killed a fucking wolf, or lived amongst the wolves like some kind of wolf person. Less extreme examples of this would be a dairy farmer being a Cowhoof, or someone becoming a Dogpaw after the passing of a beloved pet.

This was why it was such a big deal when Deerfoot saw the bear paw mark: it meant this dude either killed an actual bear, or was the first person ever to live among the bears peacefully. If he really did just slot a hibernating bear’s throat, it would've meant he was a huge piece of shit - but we’ll never know because Gone already got to him.

(There’s probably also a small number of Barehands, this universe's answer to vegans, but they're not in the story.)

The other-other way to make a mark is with a healing crystal. Having a healing crystal (especially multiple crystals) is a big deal and healers are regarded very highly in society. They’re very rare magical rocks that have been around for centuries, and their origins aren’t well known. Basically the only way to get them (legitimately) is to inherit them from a healer you’ve trained under, usually for most of your life. Healing crystals grow white and when in proximity of a wound, they’ll start healing it. You do have to be smart about this, especially when it comes to more complex surgical procedures, hence the requirement for so much training. If you just close up sliced arteries willy-nilly and block someone's blood circulation, nek minute you’ve got a necrotic limb. Crystals can also be used to mark Lodestones and they’ll leave behind a little glowing star mark. In fact, healers will visit a Lodestone multiple times during their stay in any Lodestone’s area because it's believed the act of attuning “recharges” a crystal, somehow.

Which brings us to Gone, a being so cursed that if a healing crystal comes close to his scales, it will start corrupting and turning a dark blue/green colour. The effects of the crystal start becoming unpredictable once corrupted, and Gone used one of them in Deerfoot’s stew to make them pass out on the night that he captured them. I don't intend to ever explain how Gone’s curse truly came about, but basically in a world of living magical rocks, the root of his curse is an aberration not unlike cancer in a living body. And if cancerous cells had access to a body that never ran out of energy and died, they would keep dividing forever.