#marley on mash

[marley-manson]

There are about 5 million little throwaway lines and details that keep the oppressive miserable setting at the forefront of the show, but this is one of my favourites.

[marley-manson]

Not sure if you're looking for random people's opinions since comments are restricted but bc this was in the general Mash tag and reblogs are on I figure I'll throw some suggestions out there anyway, since I have a lot of citations for this side of BJ in my back pocket from writing meta lol. Not necessarily his absolute worst moments but a lot of the negative and potentially illustrative ones I can think of, that haven't been mentioned in the comments yet:

- in Depressing News he makes fun of Hawkeye's monument and doesn't interact with his plotline otherwise - in Backpay he calls Hawkeye crazy for his attempt to get paid by the army - in The Grim Reaper he tells casually tells Hawkeye Bloodworth has an open and shut case against him and gets more upset about Winchester taking his jacket than Hawkeye's impending court martial, to Hawkeye's irritation - imo Bottoms Up is particularly bad because BJ's prank on Hawkeye alienates him from others and makes him a temporary pariah in camp - in Rally Round the Flagg he spends the episode calling Hawkeye over emotional and irrational - even when Hawkeye gets reasonably upset about Charles making an extremely racist remark about the North Korean he saved - in Preventative Medicine he values an appendix over a hundred lives (obviously the writers intended for him to have a point but I find the messaging very bad) - in GFA he accidentally but pretty predictably triggers Hawkeye and then leaves without saying goodbye while trying to get Hawkeye to say it despite Hawkeye not knowing he's planning to leave for good - In Mail Call Three he needs to feel like Peg still needs him materially, not emotionally, by telling her which mechanic to go to - Not terrible but potentially revealing for BJ's character: in Smilin Jack, his method of reassuring the kid who's wondering why he doesn't just desert but keeps going into battle and getting hurt is to tell him that he's a good order-taker, as a positive attribute - Straight up telling Aggie that the reason he can't have an affair with her is because he's in a war zone and he needs an idyllic image of his family in the future to help him cope - In Stars and Stripes he lords the paper he and Charles are writing over Hawkeye in a way that, like his behaviour in Heroes imo, suggests and underlying jealousy of Hawkeye - In Un The Night and the Music he can't bring himself to tell a patient that he's probably going to lose his leg and keeps falsely reassuring him that it'll be fine, because he started projecting on the patient when he mentioned his family - In Operation Friendship he steadfastly refuses to admit his arm is injured until it requires immediate surgery, even though he's a surgeon so he should both know better and it's his livelihood

Hope the fic writing goes well!

i need a watch list for BJ's Lowest Moments as review for a fic i'm having writers block for!!

i can think of a lot of random little scenes on top of beejcentric plot lines, but i'm putting out the call so that i may leave no stone unturned. plus i'm awful at remembering exactly which episode everything is in because i haven't done enough rewatches for most of the show yet... my memory is swiss cheese :'(

i want to really explore the worst side of him for this fic, and to that end, i want to have enough source material on-hand that i could theoretically put a little parenthetical citation after every jerk thing i have him say or do like i'm writing a fucking paper... because i'm NOT just walloping him for the sake if it, i'm trying to form a reasonable argument and keep it grounded in plausibility. the last thing i want is for this to read as an ooc crackfic!!

sooooo please comment or reply with an episode that you think has one of bj's lowest, evillest, douchiest moments 😈

[marley-manson]

The more I think about it the more I adore Hawkeye laughing when Radar walks in on the flu shot in Carry on Hawkeye.

It's just such a delightful reaction. A lesser show might frame it as an embarrassing moment, maybe as comeuppance for his flirting, or just for humour. Hawkeye can make role reversal sex jokes but he wouldn't want anyone actually thinking it's something he does, that would actually be humiliating.

But no when Radar walks in and thinks he's interrupting some kind of sexual moment it's played like his dream punchline, the best possible thing that could've happened in that moment. Zero shame, zero embarrassment, nothing but appreciation for the comic timing. It's so much fun lol, god I love this episode.

[nimuetheseawitch]

bj (sorry I'm not familiar enough with your more current fandoms to ask about them lol): 5, 6, 24

No apologies necessary! I love talking about MASH even when I'm not actively in it. Even before my deep obsession came on, my brother joked that every family event, I was guaranteed to turn the conversation to MASH (to be fair, it's something all of us watched, and there's a lot to talk about). And I like talking about MASH with you!

So, BJ.

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

Out of nowhere, the first song that popped into my head was Evil Woman by ELO, but that's not actually a song I associate with BJ. I do, on the other hand, always think of Tegan & Sara's Don't Believe the Things They Tell You (They Lie). I end up with a lot of MASH feelings when I listen to that album (Hey, I'm Just Like You).

6. What's something you have in common with this character?

I, too, talk about my partner a ridiculous amount to people who've never met him. I think it comes from having been long distance for so long - a lot of my friends didn't meet him for years, but he's an important part of my life, so I talk about him a lot. But it can probably get annoying.

24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?

So, I was amused when I got into the Top Gun fandom (oh my god it's been a year of that obsession...) and realized how many ridiculous men with mustaches and Hawaiian shirts I was looking at. And now I'm kinda curious what level of influence MASH might've had on the choice to make Goose like that in the original Top Gun in 1986. Because he has a mustache, the Hawaiian shirt, is kind of a sidekick to the dark haired lady-killer main character, tells a lot of ridiculous jokes, and adores his blonde wife and child. But I see the anger and frustration in Bradley (who has the mustache and shirt as Goose's son in Top Gun: Maverick).

[gleesongtournament]

[marley-manson]

I haven't tallied all the pregnancy jokes on Mash but I actually have tallied all Hawkeye's pregnancy jokes about himself or other men lol.

Hawkeye has 9 about himself, an additional 8 about other guys (patients, Klinger, Frank), and 1 borderline one where he refers to himself and Trapper as "Me and the Missus" while wrapping his arms around Trapper's stomach in classic pregnant wife pose. In gorilla suits.

Also there's Potter's "File a paternity suit!" in Hepatitis to make Hawkeye laugh as a bonus.

Oh wait ETA Hawkeye has 10 referring to himself because I forgot the bit in Life With Father where they discuss the horse like a pregnancy.

rewatching “Kim” last night and I didn’t finish bc I got too tired but within the first half of the episode, they’ve got the exchange above, plus a joke about Radar being pregnant, plus the following:

has someone actually tallied all of the pregnancy jokes made throughout the show - and more specifically, how many times Hawkeye makes those jokes (and even more specifically, how many times does he make them about himself) bc I feel like it needs to be done.

[caddyxjellyby]

Unpopular Mash opinion

🔥

I don't buy Hawkeye being insecure about his appearance. I mean, look at Alan Alda. He's six feet tall, he has gorgeous blue eyes, the only thing about him that is unconventionally handsome is his nose which just gives his face character. Sure, he makes some self-deprecating jokes, but jokes are meant to be funny, and I don't think Hawkeye ever comments on his nose (nor does anyone else).

[thelatecaptainpierce]

catch 22 by joseph heller // mash (o.r.)

[majorbaby]

first trapper tuesday of the year fell on january 3st, made these to celebrate

[marley-manson]

I did a tiny bit of research on this for a throwaway line in a fic lol and I think it's just a nod to historical accuracy - they were essentially porn mags before obscenity laws loosened up, with just a thin veneer of being lifestyle magazines (particularly in the 50s when most of them were pretty much catering to horny dudes), so I think the intended vibe is that Hawkeye has a collection of the closest stuff you could get to porn through subscription.

And as a fun fact they were also popular with gay men, particularly soldiers with little privacy who needed plausible deniability, because there was equal opportunity nudity in them (though women tended to be posed more erotically).

Are Hawkeye's nudist magazines supposed to be like porn porn and it's just 70s network television depicting the 50s or was there an actual market for just pictures of naked people in various poses.

[bornforastorm]

mash 3

oh, but of course, my dear!! I know you're not into Hawkeye Loves His Hometown so here is some of the HawkTrap part:

When one bottle of wine is done, Hawkeye opens a second and sits at the kitchen table to drink it. All this drinking leads to wandering to his dad’s office in the back of the house and scrounging around to find the taped letter he’d sent. It takes him half an hour to find the reel-to-reel so he can play it, then he sits on the floor for an hour listening to the tape on repeat. 

Say hello, Trapper. Hello, Trapper– Five parts gin and one moment’s silence for the vermouth– no trouble– hello dad, your son’s no good.

Hearing that voice is a pang, a pinch, that sends him to refill his glass. 

Pang aside (and the pang does subside after the third play through), it’s a nice tape and he’s glad to have it. Hearing Frank makes him smile; it’s almost nice to remember him now, from a distance. On the flip side, it hurts more than he’d expected to hear Henry. He’d thought his heart was almost healed from that loss.  But Trapper… Trapper, who’s featured more than anyone else, who was such a natural part of his life that he comes in and out of his letter to his dad almost without fuss. Did he really think about it at all when he’d made the tape? He didn’t. Back then, he’d thought they would spend the whole war together, and then some. It was obvious that Trapper would be on the tape in the same way it was obvious Trapper was mentioned in written letters, and there was no need to get more than a few words here or there to send to his dad. There would be other chances, of course. For everyone. 

What a laugh. 

That tape recorder stuck around, but they ran out of tape for it almost immediately and couldn’t get more until much, much later. Until Charles arrived with his own tape recorder, in fact. Too late to get more Frank, more Trapper, more Henry.

He listens to the tape over and over, speeding through his own long winded descriptions to hear those few, beloved, crackling phrases and the playful strums from Trapper’s guitar at the end, the few words from Henry and Frank. All with an ear reaching for more. It’s not enough. Why didn’t he record more? Why didn’t he send his dad entire interviews? What he wouldn’t give for five uninterrupted minutes of Trapper John’s voice. For five minutes of Henry Blake’s voice.

Well, he can’t have five minutes more of Henry, no matter how much he wishes he could. What he can have is five more minutes of Trapper John. 

So he cracks. He cracks on the first night of being home alone, one month and four days after getting home from Korea.

He leaves the reel-to-reel still spinning and rushes to his room, finds the last letter Trapper sent– that sad little thing– and dashes down the stairs to the phone. Where he stops dead. He’s been drinking and upstairs he was dreamy and drunk. Now, looking at Trapper’s return address and the phone in front of him, he feels stone sober. The envelope in his hands feels fragile and heavy at once.

He manages to pick up the phone, and having done that first step, the rest is easier. It’s not hard to ask the operator to connect him to Boston, where the Boston operator does some searching to find the number he needs. It’s a long pause, long enough to make him anxious, before the operator tells him she can connect him, and is he ready? 

“Yes, yes,” he says, too fast. “Thank you.”

As the phone rings, he wonders if the Crabapple Cove library has a Boston phonebook. Too late now. He’ll look into it tomorrow, maybe, and as the ring goes on and on he imagines prank calling Charles.

Finally, abruptly, a girl picks up and Hawkeye’s stomach plummets to somewhere near his knees.

“Hello, McIntyre’s,” she snaps.

“Uh, hi.”

Her voice is a little young sounding to be the wife, he thinks. Maybe it’s a sister. Did Trapper have a sister? Did his wife have a sister? There’s so much he was sure he’d never forget about Trap, but now he's faced with something he’s sure he’s forgotten. He should know this. Christ, there’s no way it’s one of the daughters, is there? He remembers their names clearly: Becky and Cathy. He doesn’t exactly remember their ages, but neither of them could be older than ten, surely. Could they?

“Hi. What can I do for ya?” The girl asks him. It sounds like she’s chewing gum.

He has to swallow, hard, to clear the lump in his throat before he can speak. “I’d like to speak to John McIntyre, please.” “Can I tell him who’s calling?” 

There’s the rub, huh? What if Trapper doesn’t want to talk to him? What if he hears his name and shrugs off the phone call, pretends not to be home? What if everything he ever said wasn’t true, and now that he’s stateside and the war is over, he doesn’t want to see Hawkeye, doesn’t want to keep going what they had, even their friendship, and just wants to forget it all ever happened? 

“Uh,” Hawkeye settles on saying. “Benjamin Pierce.” 

“One sec,” the girl says, and then he hears her press the handset to her chest. The rustle of a blouse, the faint beat of her heart. His own heart mirrors hers, but much closer, right up in his throat. This was stupid. He shouldn’t have called.

There’s some noise, some muffled words, a clatter from a distance and then the sound over the phone comes in loud and sharp— that voice, that amazing drawl that Hawkeye had missed more than he’d realized, saying, in a hushed, breathless, somewhat reverent whisper: “Hawk?” 

“Hiya Trap.” He’s trying to sound casual and it sounds so forced it’s ghoulish. “I, uh, I’m sorry to call you at home but—“

He doesn’t have an excuse. There’s no emergency. He just got a little drunk and wanted to hear Trapper’s voice and realized he could.

“Geez, Hawk, I…” He sounds a little shattered, and for a moment the line is silent while they peacefully listen to each other breathe. “When did you get back?” 

[transgayhawkeyepierce]

Hawkeye is kind of a tough fuck. Like, not in the traditional sense, he's a self identified "coward", he's pretty much always subverting masculinity in some way, he's a jokester, he's emotionally open. But Hawkeye is tough. He's preserving, to an insane degree. The reason why the war hurts him so badly is because of how determined he is to keep his head on straight, not getting worn down to cynicism or detachment or acceptance of the atrocities being committed there. Even when the war breaks him, we see him regain his mind and start to heal, because that's just who Hawkeye is. He's always pushing through. And let's not forget what lengths Hawkeye will go through to help, of what happened to Lacey when he threatened the lives of all those men, of Hawkeye's schemes to get money for the orphanage, or smuggle out prisoners of war. Hawkeye is tough because he loves others and wants to live long enough to make connections with them, because he values his personhood, he's tough because he's kind and will do All he can for a mere stranger. Hawkeye is tough because he is good and that makes his toughness almost untouchable.

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

If you already got this from someone and you just haven't answered yet pls ignore, but if no one else asked i want to add klinger+charles for the relationship bingo ask meme

ok I’m getting to this late as FUCK but PLEASE nobody ever hesitate to send me something for an ask game if I get one ask on a topic I will go YIPPEE and if I get 20 asks on the same topic I will go YIIIIIPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Anyhow you're indeed the only one around here who shows outside interest in our rarepair insanity, a boon I will remember as long as I live btw. Mx. Smoking Marlene Dietrich I owe you the WORLD

TRIPLE BINGO because they are EVERYTHING. to me.

It’s funny. This is the one duo where I almost do just want to post the bingo and leave it at that. Part of me wants to tell people about this ship SO bad, to give novel-length explanations and justifications and theses. But the other part of me is like you know what. You either Get It or you don’t.

Anyways there are 10000 things to say about Them but one is: I specifically did not fill in “gay af to have a sworn rival” even though it cost me another bingo because one of the most fascinating things about the interactions between these two is that they actually do not have a mutually adversarial relationship--even though that’s what writers usually do with two characters on diametrically opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. 

I’ve been thinking about this a bit because I’ve seen people say things like, “It’s great what a funny duo they turned into when they started out hating each other, haha.” And I get why one would think like this but IMO it’s actually not the case! Charles acts more familiar with Max over time because he does that with everyone--

(Though he’s racist towards Max throughout, of course. Because Charles’ racism never goes away. You know that right. MASH fandom I am putting my hands on your shoulders and asking: You know that, right? I keep seeing people talk about Charles having a character arc and a redemption arc so I’m just. I’m just making sure.)

--but Max has actually been pretty nice to him right from the start, back when Charles’ relationship with basically every character was antagonistic. As soon as s6e13 he tells Charles how similar they are, how they should work together to try and get away from the war, how they’re “soulmates”. Even after Charles insults him, he straight up says, “I’m on your side, Major”, which I’m pretty sure remains one of the nicest things someone canonically says to Charles, ever. Just one scene, but emblematic of a greater whole, of quite a few future scenes where Max gamely engages with Charles even when it puts him in unpleasant situations.

And of course, the motivation the show usually gives, on those occasions when it thinks about Maxwell’s motivations at all, is a simple throwaway “Well Charles is paying him / giving him some other material benefit, so obviously Klinger will be his kicked dog! You all know how Middle Eastern people are! We are a groundbreakingly progressive show btw.”

But man. Fuck that shit. This is far afield of my original point but the thing is, Max’s interactions with Charles are often the most egregious exempla of every way the later seasons fucked over my girl here. It almost seems useless to try to analyze any of Max’s actions after a certain point from a Watsonian perspective, when the Doylist reading of the show being too racist and stupid to do anything coherent with him is the ultimate explanation, and sometimes the only explanation you can even come up with, because shit just makes NO fucking sense in-universe. 

But unfortunately I’m a stupid cringe ass fanfic writer/reader, and I love this character, and Max already gets so little screentime compared to the main protagonists, and I don’t want to just ignore him because of the decisions of writers who didn’t care about him.

(That’s the entire reason I started shipping this stupid thing in the first place, btw. I just wanted to read some fanfic where Max is the main character and idk if you’ve noticed but if it weren’t for AO3 user stateofintegrity and their ~problematic cringe ship~, the pickings would be pretty fucking slim.)

So I like to pretend there’s a better reason for Maxwell going from “Major Burns I hate you so fucking much I am going to kill us both with this fucking grenade” to the equivalent of a tumblr blog responding to pathetic anon hate with “are we about to have sex”. After all, if you’re going to write Maxwell yourself, get inside his head and all, then you also have to account for why he tolerates all the OTHER characters’ racism towards him in later seasons, too. 

And the messy problematic reasoning I come up with is that Max is at heart the kindest and also most emotionally intelligent character on the show, and even the liberalized version of the 1950s our story is set in is a systemically bigoted universe that is all he’s ever known and experienced, and he’s certain these are good people, really, when it matters. And being emotionally intelligent, and generally intelligent too for that fucking matter, and observant and insightful, he can tell there’s a big difference between Frank and Charles, and perhaps less of a difference, even, between Charles and Hawkeye. Maybe when you watch things from Hawkeye’s POV, the ideological and moral differences between him and Charles are huge, but maybe if you were in Max’s POV instead there wouldn’t be quite as much of a distinction between them. I don’t know! I don’t know. Just some ideas, I don’t know. 

Of course getting into fucking. internalized racism and such is pretty uncomfy and exhausting shit. And that’s not even touching all the gender stuff my girl has going on. You start to see why nobody wants to get into this character’s head much. But I do :3 And I do honestly think sometimes the most effective way to do that is to look at the Messiest Ship In All Of MASH (TM). As I’ve talked about before from the Charles angle, I love this ship precisely because of its Problems, because they’re problems that exist anyways for both characters, and having the two of them interact makes the problems impossible to ignore, so they maybe finally get to be dealt with. I mean, I just don’t think the optimal resolution to Charles and Max’s racism-laden interactions is that Charles goes back home to a big opulent house and Max struggles to save up to buy a used car in After M*A*S*H. That is not super satisfying. to me. 

This post got derailed to hell but I think what I was trying to say is that Max treats Charles SO much better than that bastard man deserves and I would at least like to see something come of it, for the love of--

[marley-manson]

dear dad bc it's an iconic often used structure and a good overview of the show in season 1

cowboy because of the slapstick comedy side by side with the political point wrt the narrative being firmly on cowboy's side (esp as a contrast to like multiple season 10 episodes about attempted deserters)

yankee doodle doctor because it's classic early mash comedy with a stark point at the end but not as dramatic as sometimes you hear the bullet and therefore more representative of the season

tuttle because it's iconic and a good showcase of the actual rebellion the protags could get up to earlier on when the tone of the show was satirical

and i'm gonna say love story because it's a demonstration of some of the more annoying and sexist aspects of the show but still funny enough with at least one memorable gay joke

curious what people think are the top 5 definitive episodes from season 1 of mash (aside from the pilot) like not necessarily your favourites but if you were going to show someone 5 episodes to represent season 1 what would they be?

[marley-manson]

one fun thing about George is that they actually show how Hawkeye's style of joking functions as a beacon for gay people. Like, George laughing at his gay slang tourist joke is a hint that he's gay before the reveal, and Hawkeye signals himself as relatable and safe by making an interior decorator joke and referencing his own inability to throw a football during their conversation

like is that not all the precedent you need to take eg "Someone's gonna have to get me pregnant first" in Welcome to Korea as Hawkeye sussing out whether BJ's down to fuck? or yk, Hawkeye's vibe in general as announcing to anyone whose radar can understand it that he's looking for guys to hook up with? you don't even need to understand how gay guys found each other in similar ways in the real world to make this connection, it's all technically there in the show itself

[rpfofficial]

tagged by @roadwhores thank you marley 🥰 make a poll with five of your all time favourite characters and then tag five people to do the same. see which character is everyone's favourite

@jorkeryuri @monkeesrainbowroom @pikslasrce @doublydaring @majortomwaits and @levon 😊👍❤️