#marley on mash
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the topic is Trapper and the army as foils, you have three hours, go
In no small part the satire of Mash, particularly in the first half of the show, is tied up with gender performance.
The army represents traditional, stifling and violent masculinity. This is shown through everything from freudian jokes about guns (eg Frank and Margaret's flirtations in The Sniper or The Gun), to Margaret trying to cajole Hawkeye into performing a more traditional standard of masculinity while treating him like a soldier in Comrades in Arms Part 2, to many jokes and comments about (usually) Hawkeye not being a real man in contrast to army standards and various specific army personnel (eg Lyle in Springtime, Flagg in White Gold), to Frank and Margaret's worship of the masculinity of the army ("He's twice the man you'll ever be," re: Flagg and Hawkeye, Margaret's lust for MacArthur, Frank pursuing the sniper in The Sniper in an attempt to be a "real man" in Margaret's eyes, etc) to many jokes positioning the military as a sexually aggressive man pursuing Hawkeye ("Sure, the sun the moon the stars, your high school letterman jacket. Same deal I promised nurse Baker." "A receipt please, and promise you'll go out with other doctors," etc.)
In contrast, the main characters all fail to perform traditional gender in some way, from crossdressing to immaturity to indecisiveness to peacefulness to Margaret's masculinity and Frank's pathetic failure to live up to his own masculine ideals, to just about everything about Hawkeye. His cowardliness, his jokes about not being a real man, his jokes about taking the feminine role in sexual encounters with men and women, even multiple double entendres about his average at best penis size.
Trapper is the most traditionally masculine of the main cast. He still subverts masculinity in some subtle ways here and there, such as the occasional feminizing joke and mentions of not being in great shape, but overall he's the more butch counterpart to Hawkeye's fem. He plays the role of boxer while Hawkeye plays the role of diva in their respective manager/star roleplaying episodes. He's broader and buffer and plays football, often seen playing catch with someone while walking around the compound, while Hawkeye disdains sports and doesn't participate. He reads Field and Stream which Hawkeye derides in Alcoholics Unanimous while making a wry comment about shaving his armpits. A past lover nicknamed him Big John.
And there are many, many jokes about Hawkeye and Trapper being sexual partners. The recurring Uncle Trapper and Aunt Hawkeye gag, if my father sees this you'll have to marry me, for me? only if you put those on, your father and I will tell you what we did to have you, that's when I fell in love with him, etc etc etc. It's constant. In these jokes Hawkeye usually takes the feminine role, though not strictly every time ("Me and the missus," is one exception in As You Were, the dance in Yankee Doodle Doctor is another).
Trapper's masculinity is differentiated from traditional military masculinity in a few ways. Most obviously, Trapper abhors the military's violence. He never uses guns and mocks Frank's obsession with them, he's a healer rather than a soldier, and he's disgusted by the results of military violence on the men on his operating table.
He's also secure in himself. The military's brand of masculinity is strongly characterized by insecurity and overcompensation. Frank is the main representative of this military insecurity - a coward who insists he's brave (The Army Navy Game), a man who clings to a phallic gun to compensate for his sexual and gendered inadequacies (a main theme of The Sniper, perfectly mirrored when the army itself comes in with a vastly disproprotionately powerful automatic machine gun on a helicopter to shoot down one sixteen year old), a homophobe repressing his own attraction to men (As You Were, the original script of George), etc. We also see this in Flagg, who implicitly sublimates sexual urges into violence (seen when he suggestively caresses his gun while describing how he wants to torture a boy in Officer of the Day).
Trapper doesn't need to overcompensate. He's well-endowed physically, he's portrayed as a competent and considerate lover, he's a brave man who doesn't mind being seen as a coward, and he may or may not be attracted to men but either way he's not a homophobe (George) and he doesn't express his sexuality through violence. When Margaret proves herself stronger than him, his response is to be impressed rather than offended (Bombed). When he dances with Hawkeye for a gag, he doesn't mind letting Hawkeye lead.
He's also differentiated in terms of tradition, with the mliitary representing a more propagandic 50s traditionalism, and Trapper representing a 70s, countercultural freedom from tradition. We see this in the way Trapper has plenty of sex despite being married, while adultery is a court-martial offense in the military. It's notable that he's open and carefree about it, while Frank and Margaret are surreptitious and hypocritical in their affair. This lack of traditionalism is also shown in his disrespect for authority, often in direct contrast to Frank and Margaret's worship of it, and his allyship to George who the military would persecute for his sexuality.
So ultimately we can see that while Trapper and the military are both examples of masculine performance, Trapper's masculinity differs from the military's in being more flexible, less violent, less traditional, and more secure. The military's masculinity is far more toxic than Trapper's, particularly in the context of 70s counterculture media, which aligns womanizing with sexual liberation rather than a lack of respect for women, accurately or not.
This contributes to their respective dynamics with Hawkeye.
Hawkeye, we've established, is usually more feminine, and there are a myriad of jokes characterizing Trapper as his sexual partner, as well as the military as a sexual pursuer.
The jokes Hawkeye and Trapper make about their relationship tend towards cozy domesticity. They're Radar's "aunt and uncle," they directly roleplay marriage ("Martha, we're going to have to move, the people upstairs are impossible,") and less directly behave as though married (the bickering in Alcoholics Unanimous, the discussion about naming their pony in Life With Father). Occasionally they're treated as a healthy couple in contrast to Frank and Margaret's toxicity ("While I'm gone, promise you'll go out with other doctors," vs "Touch anyone else and I'll cut off your hands" in Aid Station).
In some instances the jokes lean towards predatory - "If you're trying to get me drunk, it'll work," or "Who is this man in bed with me?" "I followed you home from the movies," but they're always playful, always fond. If Hawkeye takes on a submissive or victimized role in these jokes, it's one he has fun with and discards just as easily in the context of the rest of his relationship with Trapper.
So, it's important to note that Hawkeye and Trapper support each other and look after each other in an equal, enthusiastic friendship. From Trapper ensuring Hawkeye gets to sleep in Doctor Pierce and Mr. Hyde, to Hawkeye supporting Trapper when he wants to adopt a child, to Trapper right at Hawkeye's side as they attempt to procure an incubator, they are there for each other every step of the way. If their relationship is a marriage in some ways, it's a healthy, strong, and non-traditional marriage, an equal and open partnership free of jealousy and insecurities.
Compare that to the military's relationship with Hawkeye. In jokes it's characterized as powerful and predatory, far from an equal partnership. Sometimes it approaches positive - in Carry on Hawkeye, much of the humour is derived from Hawkeye and Margaret's gendered role reversal as she assumes military command of the unit. Hawkeye playfully calls her sir, seductively lies on her desk like a secretary in a porn film, and most notably treats an immunization shot as sexual penetration in a prolonged gag about sexual role reversal. Hawkeye has fun playing a sexually submissive role to a representative of military authority in this episode, but it is a submissive role.
Several of the one-off jokes have a similar sensibility, such as the double entendre of "My bellybutton's been puckering and unpuckering all day," in response to a representative of MacArthur assuming their excitement over the general's arrival to the unit, or Hawkeye's "Okay, take me, I'm yours," to Colonel Flagg. They demonstrate a willingness to play the receptive role on Hawkeye's part, but they also, pointedly, disturb the object of the jokes.
When Hawkeye makes these jokes that sexualize military authority, he's attempting to be provocative as well as defiantly drawing disruptive attention to his own powerlessness as a drafted surgeon. The power dynamic between Hawkeye and the authority of the military only goes one way, and Hawkeye gets a kick out of pointing it out in ways that perturb the representatives of that authority, but it's a power dynamic that takes its toll on him.
Many of Mash's plotlines revolve around Hawkeye rebelling and attempting to seize some scrap of agency back from the military. Adam's Ribs, for example, in which he starts a mild riot over the food he's being fed and spends the episode attempting to procure barbecue ribs from Chicago (which Trapper procures for him), or Back Pay where he tries to charge the military for his forced labour. A particularly notable example is Some 38th Parallels, in which Hawkeye complains about being paid the equivalent of a nickel per operation, and his frustration manifests in impotency until he can perform a gesture of rebellion against the military.
One unfortunate consistency of these episodes is that the army ultimately retains its power. When Hawkeye achieves his goals, it's only in small ways that do little more than satisfy his own need to assert his sense of self. Often, Hawkeye doesn't achieve his goal at all, but is thwarted by the army, such as in For Want of a Boot. In every instance he remains powerless in comparison to the authority of the military.
So the context in which Hawkeye makes these sexualized jokes about the military literally fucking him is one of abject helplessness. In a sense, all he's capable of is pointing out what the military is doing and putting it in his own, audacious terms. He's not capable of preventing it. His jokes usually have an edge of bitterness to them in delivery, and when they don't, that tone is imparted anyway by the greater context.
With Trapper, Hawkeye can play-act a marriage or an assault, but in either case he's an enthusiastically consenting, equal partner. Trapper's performance of masculinity allows for Hawkeye to take any role from victim to wife to husband, and enables Trapper to respond in kind from a position of equality and respect. The military, in its insecure, domineering performance of masculinity, is a dictatorial authority, never allowing Hawkeye perform any role but a feminized, victimized one, and only ever giving him the choice of whether to perform with a wry smile or a sneer.
In short, Trapper is the cool, considerate service top to the military's insecure domineering boyfriend.
I'm tagging everyone who enabled this lol, share the blame. @beansterpie @majorbaby @professormcguire @rescue-ram
#mash#this was dumb but writing it was somehow cathartic for me lol#i should've done this with frank and hawkeye as foils wrt subverting masculinity bc i think that would've been much easier#but i got caught up in this honestly. it's incredibly fun to write this kind of shit#maybe i'll post a round 2 sometime#marley on mash#ship ht#mash gs#and like... it's a little bit parodic but also sincere to an extent lol. this is absolutely one way of reading all the freudian#undercurrents in the show. it's definitely silly to contrast trapper and the military to make a point about how the show depicts#masculinity especially for like 1800 words lmao but it's a very fun angle#trapper mash#hawkeye mash#long post
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catch 22 by joseph heller // mash (o.r.)
#mash#mashedit#catch 22#mash 22 is BACK baby#shout out to tumblr user marley--manson for helping me out
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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.
#Marley this is inspired by your read more post#I will say Hawkeye does get worn down scheme wise by the people around him in later seasons but that's a different post#anyway Henry go work on your paperwork!!!#hawkeye pierce#m*a*s*h#mash
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first trapper tuesday of the year fell on january 3st, made these to celebrate
#trapper tuesday#mash#m*a*s*h#trapper john mcintyre#hawkeye pierce#i was going to crop out everything but his chest but i realized that wouldn't be very fair to the feet people i mean--#and the knee people (which is to say - hawkeye)#marley i appreciated your suggestion and i will use it at a later date#it's january 3st you understand#majorbaby.gif
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#glee#glee song tournament#glee polls#finn hudson#marley rose#blaine anderson#santana lopez#sam evans#tina cohen chang#group: new directions#group: the troubletones#song: don't dream it's over#song: hit me with your best shot/one way or another#season 4#4x09#episode: swan song#season 3#3x06#episode: mash off#round 4
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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).
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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?”
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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--
#HAPPY NEW YEARS EVE I lost so much sleep to write this and for what. truly for what.#to hopefully not get hashtag canceled for it on the off chance someone reads it I guess ghdsjgkhdsklkhk anyways#I meant to say I actually usually hate when Rich Character and Poor Character are portrayed in a Rivalry Of Equals type scenario cause like#nooooo actually that's not how life works. power differential means something. this is no a fair fight.#Starky loves answering questions#marley-manson#putting my organizational tags early this time cause apparently if you put them too late they don't show up on your own blog tag searches??#I couldn't find my unpopular opinion Charles manifesto ;;;_;;; thankfully I'd linked it before smh#did any of this make ANY sense like just out of curiosity. clap if it made sense.#mash#charmax#idk man I just can't separate the fact#that Charles being racist to Klinger is contemporaneous with#1) the other characters not really giving a shit about Charles' racism#and 2) the other characters also being racist to Klinger themselves#albeit less frequently depending on the season#I've said it before and I'll say it again#everything people hate about this ship should be things they hate about much more than JUST this ship#the concept of shipping these two together just makes you suddenly step back and take notice of all the latent garbage#and that's part of why I like it. because it makes you take notice.#the other part of why I like it is that Max deserves a sugar daddy who will buy him anything he wants forever#also this isn't the direction I ended up going with the post#but my favorite thing about the total imbalance in how they see each other#is that Max makes Charles soooo angry all the time#and Charles barely registers as an annoyance to Max most of the time#it's like when a cat has decided one of your appendages is an enemy to be attacked#and you're just sitting there like haha playtime with my silly kitty :3#K if you're reading this btw you know I don't think your stuff is cringe or problematic#that was for the Outsiders the Uninitiated the Ignorant#you understand how it is. I am giving you 1000000 kisses now also.
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Hawkeye+Margaret, Klinger+Soon-Lee
Hawkeye+Margaret
I love them, so much, but I ship them platonically, mostly. They are enemies they are friends they are queer and supporting each other and they express love the same ways.
Klinger+Soon Lee
My favorite. They were made for each other and Soon Lee wants to see Klinger in his wedding dress. I could talk about them for hours. They are perfect and deserve happiness.
#thanks for the excellent duo choices marley!#made me very happy to think about them because i love them#asked and answered#mash
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3, 8, 10
3. Favorite M*A*S*H ship?
I'm not sure I have one. I'm pretty neutral on the topic. I have ships that I think would work, and those that I don't, but I can usually see the appeal of a ship even if I don't seek it out.
Case in point, I'm not a huge BJ fan, and don't particularly enjoy seeing him on screen, but I get why others might be drawn to the character. He was with the show longer, so he had a little more time to develop angsty side arcs for fans to read into. His relationship with Hawkeye is far more tumultuous than Hawkeye’s relationship with Trapper. They have wildly different, clashing ways of dealing with stress and trauma. Watching BJ struggle coming to terms with his attraction towards Hawkeye as Hawkeye simultaneously resigns himself to BJ not being available is a dynamic that really lends itself to analysis.
Piercintyre I find really cute and could see working out long term, but it's also pretty cut and dry. There's a lot less to analyze. Not nothing, but less.
Margaret and Lorraine could’ve had a very interesting dynamic if Lorraine was more than just a one off character. Lorraine represents everything Margaret wishes she could be, but Margaret's too stifled by both her role in the military and her family's expectations to allow herself that freedom. They both balance each other out, Lorraine drawing out the fun-loving, carefree side of Margaret, and Margaret drawing out the responsible, down to Earth side of Lorraine.
8. Which character do you relate to the most?
Oh, god, I don't know I relate to any of them. I latched onto Hawkeye, so there's probably something there.
10. What do you think B.J. stands for?
I like the Benjamin theory. BJ lying about such a pointless thing is very funny to me, but it also involves some suspension of disbelief. If it did stand for anything, it would be in BJ's file. FLSA means the US Army would have had to of kept a record of BJ's full name and social security number for compensation purposes.
Alternatively, BJ could have slipped a dummy document into the filing cabinet for Hawkeye to find, with an edited name. It's happened before in the show.
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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
#mash#mash s2#marley on mash#hawkeye mash#mash gs#in this book i'm reading there's a lot about essentially using gay humour as a safe way to determine whether someone is gay#and it brought this to mind lol
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The alliance post rumbling celebrate the holidays + Levi's birthday fic request
thanks :)
happy birthday, old man
levi ackerman. canon compliant.
1349 words.
read on ao3.
The small cottage that Levi has been living in has been decorated from ceiling to floor with festive decorations: holly and ivy, mistletoe and tinsel, paper stars and paper snowflakes. He’s never been one for festivities and had even told those damn kids that he didn’t need to do anything special, but they had insisted on coming over and covering his house with every ridiculous decoration they could find. He’s still not sure about the winter holiday that they’re about to be celebrating. It’s something that was introduced to Paradis after the island opened its borders, but the kids found it amusing that the holiday fell on Levi’s birthday. They’ve told him they’re gathering here to celebrate that strange new holiday, but he knows it’s only a guise for celebrating his birthday.
“I have a headache just thinking about how much cleaning I’ll have to do later,” Levi mutters as he wheels himself around the house. He hates tinsel especially. It comes apart too easily and seems to get everywhere. He frowns as another thread of tinsel falls to the floor and tries to repress to pick it up immediately and chuck into the garbage bin.
“Oh, don’t worry about that! Falco and I’ll be sure to clean everything up until everything sparkles and shines the way you like,” Gabi says. He refers to all of them as kids, but even Gabi and Falco are teenagers now. They tower above him and they’re sure to grow even more in these next few years.
“I met as well just clean it myself then,” Levi says dryly. Gabi is far too impatient to clean anything thoroughly. Falco is only slightly more reliable and would probably do a half decent job if he weren’t always rushed by Gabi. Levi looks over at the blond boy who is hovering nervously over the tinsel that had been bothering him earlier. “If you really insist on it, then you can clean it up. Just don’t leave anything behind, Falco.”
Falco jumps at the mention of his name and immediately snatches the tinsel off the ground. “Y-yes, sir!” he stammers.
“Oh, stop teasing the poor boy,” Mikasa says, giving the retired captain a swat on the shoulder. She takes the tinsel from Falco’s hands and crumples it into her fist to throw away later. “Don’t bother about the mess. Everyone else will clean it later and you can grumble about what a poor job we did afterward.”
“I can grumble about it now,” Levi says, but somebody grabs his wheelchair and begins wheeling him towards the dining table.
“Can’t you take one day off to not grumble about things?” Jean laughs as he pushes Levi towards the head of the table. He takes a seat beside Levi and the others gather around.
Everyone has come to celebrate: the remaining members of his last squad that had fought alongside him during the Rumbling, the Marleyan Warriors, and Gabi and Falco. The ones closest to him sit by his side while the soldiers from Marley sit further out. Onyankopon is on the other end of the table, adjusting the camera so that it captures everyone. In his hand is a remote shutter to take the photo. Once everything is in place, Onyankopon hurries over to an empty space beside Reiner Braun.
“Is everyone ready? Smile for the camera!” he says and pauses for a moment before clicking the shutter in his hand.
The shutter clicks as it takes a few photos and Onyankopon hurries back to the camera to roll up the wire of the remote shutter and fold up the tripod. The others begin chatting away while Historia and Connie help to carry the food from the kitchen to the table. It’s a far larger dinner than Levi had expected: a perfectly cooked turkey with crisp, golden skin, mashed potatoes and gravy, honey roasted ham, a color salad filled with fresh greens and thinly sliced tomatoes and cucumbers and drizzled with vinaigrette, green bean casserole, buttery dinner rolls, cranberry sauce, and corn pudding. It’s far too much for all of them to eat, but they’ll worry about the leftovers later.
“I thought I recalled telling you that it wasn’t necessary to celebrate my birthday this year,” Levi says as everyone is polishing off their second plate.
“Who says this is for you?” Pieck asks jokingly. They’re all still pretending that they care more about this new holiday where people give each other gifts even though none of them have brought a single present to Levi’s house. “We’re only here to celebrate the holiday. It just happens to be on your birthday.”
“Do you really think you’re so important that we would gather here on your birthday?” Reiner teases.
“I did offer to make your birthday a national holiday, but you refused,” Historia recalls. She leans over so that Levi can get a better look at the grin on her face. "Do you regret turning down my offer now?”
“Knowing how much the Jaegerists despise us still, it’d probably make them hate the Captain even more,” Jean chuckles.
“I’d be throwing eggs at his likeness with the rest of them,” Annie says before sipping her drink and her remark earns a few chuckles from their comrades around the table.
It’s been a while since Levi has heard so much laughter at the table. It reminds him of his younger years. The people are different, but the laughter is the same. He still thinks about it sometimes, sitting around the table with his old squad or having a cup of tea with the other squad leaders. That was back in the day when they were fighting to stop the end of the world or die trying. As it turns out, the world didn’t end even when they thought it would and now here they are, back at this table swapping stories and laughing. Everything has come full circle.
“By the way, Captain,” Armin says before passing a small package wrapped in parcel paper. It’s been a long time since the war has ended and yet he still refers to Levi by his old rank even though most of his other peers have dropped the formalities. “I know you said you didn’t want any gifts this year, but I couldn’t stop thinking that you’d like something small at least.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t have expected you to keep following my orders after leaving the Scouting Legion, huh, Arlert?” Levi remarks dryly, and Armin cheeks flush a bright pink. Nonetheless, Levi accepts the package and tears off the wrapping carefully. He doesn’t expect to see a picture frame inside nor the detailed portrait that has been carefully placed inside.
It’s a drawing of Levi and all his comrades, most of them fallen but some of them in the room with him now. The portrait is in black and white, drawn in graphite, and was conjured by a careful hand that can only belong to Jean Kirstein. The drawings of the fallen soldiers are not perfect. They don’t completely match the image of the comrades that still live in his memories, but they are similar enough that Levi can make out pieces of them that Kirstein has managed to coax out despite having never met them at all.
“I wasn’t able to meet many of them, but their family members were very helpful in giving us descriptions,” Jean murmurs as they all watch Levi cautious, gauging the captain’s reaction. “We thought you might appreciate it, especially since you don’t have any photographs of it.”
“Not bad, Kirstein,” Levi says finally, the sound of his voice breaking a heavy silence. He sets the framed drawing down in front of him and looks up at the comrades he has left. There are more of them than he thought would be here. Some of them he had never even anticipated himself allying himself with. “I might even hang this up.”
At this, everyone cracks a smile. Mikasa reaches out to squeeze Levi’s shoulder. “We’re glad you like it,” she tells him. “Happy birthday, old man.”
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💌 late to the game but why not? 💖
ahhh marley 💖 i'm going to embarrass you a little but you asked for it!!
that big huge brain of yours <3 but also how well you can articulate everything that's going on up there. reading your meta made me go 'i want to write like that'... almost two years ago now. not in terms of your style, but your standards: well-researched, well-argued... i think you're still leagues ahead of me in terms of articulating things clearly (as i may be demonstrating right now lmao) but tbh you're leagues ahead of most. and i think that's not just about 'sounding smart' it's also about writing in plain language that most people can understand.
like if i wasn't sooo delighted every time you asked my opinion on something, i spat out some word salad filled with "kind ofs" and "maybes" and "idk but" just for you to process it and rephrase it in a much clearer (and MUCH more brief) way, always to confirm, never condescend... then i might have developed an inferiority complex lmao.
also i think it's great that you ask people for their opinions on things whenever they express interest in your opinions. so much talk about 'fandom community' and it can just be like... talking to people, explaining what you liked and what you didn't like in your own words without relying too much on inside jokes and buzzwords... sharing meta and encouraging people to share their own.
that had a really big impact on me early on in my mash fandom days. while it's possible i would've started this blog anyway and eventually started making gifs and memes etc, it started out with meta and i associate my earliest meta posts with our very first conversations about MASH.
one other thing: i feel like having you as an editor for my fics is the one brag i am confident and comfortable making re: anything related to fandom. i value your friendship first and foremost, but having a beta who is thorough, technically competent and willing to challenge me, has unlocked potential in my work that i don't think i could have ever achieved on my own. i have the best editor in the not-a-business, fight me :3
mutuals send me a 💌 and ill tell u something i love about you
#ok i will have mercy now but to anyone reading this you should also know#that marley writes really good MASH fic#and has a passion for vidding and makes great vids#and is quite welcoming of people responding to and reblogging her posts#💌
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Glee Song Tournament Round 2
#glee#glee song tournament#glee polls#finn hudson#rory flanagan#tina cohen chang#quinn fabray#marley rose#rachel berry#song: i can't go for that/you make my dreams#song: new york state of mind#season 3#3x06#episode: mash off#season 4#4x01#episode: the new rachel#round 2
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Hawkeye and Trapper and/or Hawkeye and Margaret for the favourite moments thing
Hawkeye and Trapper:
Saying good-bye to each other with tears in their eyes in Check-Up. Riding a horse together in Life with Father. Them drinking and singing with Margaret in Alcoholics Unanimous.
Hawkeye and Margaret:
Commiserating over their love lives and playing Scrabble in Stars and Stripes. “Nurse, friend, and all-around good egg” in Carry On, Hawkeye. Him trusting her to judge Potter’s surgical ability in Change of Command. I love it when they respect her nursing skills.
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If you're still doing that fic ask meme, I wanted to ask for Perspective Flip for the scene in Crabapple Crabs where BJ gives Hawkeye the ultimatum, so we can see it from Hawkeye's point of view, and/or The Million Dollar Question for Hawk and Trap that night after BJ goes to bed - do they talk for a while, does Hawk tell BJ right away or wait til the next morning, etc.
yes of course!!
sorry for the delay, this took forever because writing takes me forever:
Perspective Flip (ps I'm not sure this is exactly how I would have written this if the entire fic had been from Hawkeye's perspective, but for the purposes of this exercise, here it is!):
“Do you have a bag?” Hawkeye asks, giddy with the unreality of BJ's presence. That he showed up on the doorstep like a gift in the middle of the night adds to that feeling. It's left him off-kilter. It's been imperfect so far, sure, and okay, BJ is weird about Trapper. That's not totally unexpected. But Hawkeye knows it'll settle down, BJ will settle down. BJ never understood how things were with Trapper-- but then again, Hawkeye knows he never really tried to explain it. Besides, it was different over there. Everything was different over there. Here it's easier, and once BJ wraps his head around Trapper it'll be easier with him too. He just needs time. They'll like each other, given the time. Hawkeye is sure. “You are staying, aren’t you? There’s room. You have to stay." He pauses, floundering. BJ is floundering a little too, by the look of him. "Besides, there isn’t a hotel in town.”
Trapper smiles from the doorway. By now, the idea of a hotel in Crabapple Cove is a joke to him. BJ looks between the two of them, blinks, and then nods.
Hawkeye glances at Trapper and Trapper takes the cue, because of course he does. The synchronicity they'd found in Korea fell back into place here in Maine almost immediately. They just know each other. They're just in alignment. It makes Hawkeye smile as he watches Trapper go out of the room and out the front door.
BJ is standing awkwardly by the corner of the table. Hawkeye puts a hand on BJ’s arm and smiles. He starts them walking out to what he considers the foyer, though it's barely more two feet between the front door and the stairs. They'll meet Trapper when he comes back in and all go up together.
It's wonderful to have BJ's arm under his hand again. It's familiar, warm and strong in a way that's different from Trapper's familiarity, warmth and strength. It's BJ, and he's missed him. Hawkeye really has missed him. “I really am so glad you’re here, Beej.”
BJ swallows so hard Hawkeye can see his throat working. “I really thought…" He pauses, changes direction. His voice gets firmer. "I missed you. I had to see you.”
For all BJ's grumpiness about Trapper, Hawkeye knows it comes from a good place. BJ cares. That's never been in doubt. “I appreciate that, BJ.”
“I care about you.”
“I know you do.”
“I want to say it.” Hawkeye watches BJ's throat work again. His hands clench and loosen. Oh boy, Hawkeye thinks. Here comes something big. And he's right. BJ says, “I love you, Hawk, I do, and being all the way across the country just wasn’t going to cut it anymore.”
It's not what he expected.
Of course he knew BJ loved him but... not the way that he seems to be saying now. With that desperate look in his eyes, he looks like he means—
Hawkeye starts, “BJ, I…” But trails off. He isn't quite sure what to make of this. It's a lot. It's a lot on top of a whole evening of lots. It's a little mind-numbing to think BJ's saying what Hawkeye is starting to think he's saying. So he asks: “BJ, what are you saying here?”
BJ brings himself to his full height, puffing up his chest. Hawkeye recognizes it as BJ steeling himself, and it would be charming if Hawkeye didn't feel like BJ was simultaneously pushing him to the edge of a precipice and threatening to throw him over. “I’m saying… I came all this way because I want to be with you. I want that.”
For a second, Hawkeye's head swims and he thinks he might pass out. BJ is looking at him with complete sincerity, telling him something Hawkeye was sure BJ would never, ever tell him.
And what are they supposed to do about it?
“What about Mill Valley?” Hawkeye hears himself ask, not entirely sure what he means. Does BJ want to come to Maine and be with him here? Like Trapper did? Or does he want Hawk to go to him, to California, to his home and daughter and— jesus christ, to his wife? What in god's name does Peg think about all this?
BJ is charging forward, grinning and manic. “We’ll make it work. I know we can make it work. You’ll come to California and—“
Hawkeye takes a step back. “BJ—“
“I’d take care of you. I love you, I do, I mean it, I’ve been thinking a lot about it, about us, and— Hawk, I don’t want you all the way across the country. I want you with me and he can’t—“
All Hawkeye can do is stare at him. It sounds insane, like BJ has lost his mind. This isn't a BJ he recognizes. What he's asking for, what he's suggesting—
Four months ago, back in Korea, Hawkeye had been sure BJ wasn’t capable of expressing emotions like this. He was too tied up in his idea of himself, of his life, and Hawkeye had accepted that. But now he’s here, saying all sorts of things Hawkeye might’ve wanted four months ago. A promise of a domestic life, a loved life, a home life— which is something he has now, with Trapper. In his home town with his dad just down the street. Imperfect, but warm and loving and comfortable. It's home. It's his home.
And BJ wants him to give it all up? If BJ wants him to give up Trapper, Hawkeye can almost wrap his head around that. He doesn't like it, but he almost gets it. But the rest he can't grasp. To give up his dad? His home?
It's shocking. Horrible. Unbelievable.
What's he supposed to say? In the face of BJ's desperate sincerity, what's he supposed to say?
The silence between them drags on too long. BJ's hopeful grin starts to fade.
Shakily, Hawkeye says, “You want me to choose, is that it? Between him and you?" BJ's mustache trembles. He's not denying it. Hawkeye's shock starts to congeal into anger. "You want me to throw him over, and my life here, my dad, and run away with you? That’s really what you want?”
Said like that, it sounds bad. Because it is bad, Hawkeye thinks. Hawkeye folds his arms over his chest. It's bad, plain and simple. It hurts to say it out loud and even put it in the air. It's bad and it's what BJ's asking of him.
BJ's mouth drops into a frown, like the abject fact of what he wants hadn't hit him before.
Hawkeye waits, hoping BJ will say, no, no that isn't what I meant at all, but—
“Yeah,” BJ admits sadly. “I guess I do.”
Hawkeye feels a part of himself slam shut.
“So it’s you or him?”
“I guess.”
“And that’s it?”
“Yeah.”
Hawkeye stares at him, face totally blank. He has no idea what to say next.
Right when the tension becomes unbearable, the front door slams open and Trapper comes bounding in, carrying BJ's weekend bag.
Million Dollar Question:
They talk for a while, absolutely. The moment they're behind closed doors Trapper is like, that guy is a real card, obviously something happened while I was outside. Hawkeye demurs, oh no, everything's fine, don't worry it, it's fine, it's fine. But Trap can tell it's not fine, and keeps pressing and pretty quickly Hawkeye spills and they talk it through until Hawkeye's too tired to want to keep talking, and then they pick it up in the morning. By which time Hawkeye has decided there's no way BJ really means it and that the best thing to do would be to keep trying with him. Meanwhile Trapper has stewed on it and has decided maybe he should punch BJ in the face.
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