#(with trapper and later bjs help)

[batcavescolony]

M*A*S*H

The thing about Hawkeye is that he doesn't want to be in Korea, he'd rather be anywhere else and he's not afraid to tell anyone that. but the SECOND those choppers roll in and those wounded need help, he's professional and ready to save lives.

[statictwoo]

I’ve been thinking a lot about earlier versus later seasons of M*A*S*H and I wanted to see if I could figure out how to keep Frank through the tone shift without sacrificing the quality of the story or the character.  Just a fun hypothetical :] Click “read more” for this because it’s going to be a long one.

First I want to look at Charles.  Between Frank and Charles, I don’t think there’s a better or worse character.  Frank is a better tool to further the anti-military, anti-war message, but Charles is a more dimensional character, and it would be impossible for them to switch places without changing the characters.  I mean, imagine Frank in GFA…ridiculous, but I am going to put him there.  Bear with me.

I prefer the earlier seasons for their satire, but I appreciate the later ones for the realism in characters like Charles and Margaret, so it would be nice to keep those strong core values while also delving into more dramatic territory.  Let’s look at what makes Frank work.  Mostly, it’s the fact that he’s a military fanatic.  His adherence to the rules gives Hawkeye and Trapper (also BJ, for a bit) something immediate to push back against.  Frank is a satirization of the unyielding conservative mindset and also a stand-in for the military itself.  Obviously Hawkeye can’t punch the US Army but he can punch Frank.  But being such a useful tool means that when Frank shows a little humanity, the writers have to pass over it pretty quickly.

What makes Charles work?  Simply put, he’s human.  He’s a terrible snob, he’s racist, he’s classist, but he’s fun.  He DOES actually care for people, he likes playing pranks, and he likes Hawkeye and BJ.  But he doesn’t have strong feelings about the military, and that means that when Hawkeye and BJ argue with him, it only serves to illustrate their personal relationship.  Charles doesn’t stand in for anything larger besides economic class, which isn’t really an integral topic of M*A*S*H since it’s something that matters a lot more back home than at war.

I think the only possible way to keep Frank would be to give him a little of Charles and a little of Margaret—that is, redeem him, just a bit.  Whereas Charles was never really painted as an antagonist and Margaret’s character development came slowly (and was also more personal than ideological), I want to give Frank a very sudden and violent awakening.  Let him lose Margaret and let him have that mental breakdown, but treat it with a little more dignity.  Institutionalize him for a bit and then send him back to the 4077th where he’s still the butt of the jokes, and now Margaret, his only support system, is pulled out from under him.  Let him realize that after doing everything right and licking every boot he was supposed to, he still failed.  He didn’t get the girl, and worse, he ended up in the looney bin.  That’s not supposed to happen to Good American Men.  At this point, I’d hope that his need for companionship would override his worship of the military. Every mention of Frank's past shows that he has always been lonely, and I would use this opportunity to really bring that out.

I’d like Frank to make an honest effort to befriend Hawkeye and BJ and put his actions where his mouth is, maybe by ignoring one out of every ten broken rules.  Keep him racist, keep him republican, keep the baffling fact that he doesn’t seem to realize they’ve left America, but make him enough of “one of the guys” that when these things come out it’s disappointing rather than just classic Frank.  His role would have to change from a caricature of the rigid conservative mind to an example of how the ideology you’re trying to fight is often present even in your own friends.  It might even help to highlight his hypocrisy!  Turn a blind eye to Hawkeye’s antics because they’re friends, but write up someone else for the same thing simply because he doesn’t know them.  

Would I want Frank to turn completely against the military?  No, it wouldn’t serve his character.  But I’d like to see him nudged just a little bit and forced to actually confront his own beliefs through Hawkeye's conscious and consistent effort.  It would be nice to get him to the point of thinking before blindly assuming that whatever the army wants is what’s right.  Granted, the guy is brainwashed and 9 times out of 10 he would definitely side with the army, but that 1 time would be fun.  I think it would be a decent way of showing some tangible results of Hawkeye’s resistance.  His actions were never going to stop the war or destroy the military or overthrow the government, but what if he could chip away at the armor starting with one person?  I would have liked the show to say more clearly that Hawkeye’s actions were worth something, and that’s just one way it could have been done.  I know Margaret is also an example but as I said before her growth is largely personal, so I think Frank would be a clearer target here.

So we’ve reached the end, we’re at “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen.”  What are we going to do with Frank?  I think there’s only one option.  Have him quit medicine.  He doesn’t have a genuine passion for it and he isn’t a good doctor, so I think this is the most obvious first step in the right direction that he can make.  We won’t get to see where he goes from here, but hopefully it’s somewhere much better.

I’m not saying this scenario would be any better than just sending him home and being done with it, but It’s fun to think about a world in which we get more Frank.  I’m biased by the fact that I just thoroughly enjoy him.  Maybe this is a universe where the original script for “George” airs!

[marley-manson]

I wonder what Hawkeye and Klinger's dynamic would be like if there was no BJ, or they didn't hit it off, and after Trapper left Hawk latched onto Klinger...

I'm thinking like trading off the straight man role between Klinger's escape plots in which Hawkeye would play the straight man, and Hawkeye's plots, in which Klinger would play a very entertaining dryly witty straight man in drag. Alternating voices of reason, Hawkeye offering tips for his schemes, Klinger offering reasonable advice.

And sometimes they'd be in pure cahoots at which point they're more of a menace than Hawkeye and Trap, but probably less effectual because they're both stupid and lack self preservation when they're dedicated to achieving something.

They'd both be very emotionally supportive of the other. I don't think later episodes where Hawkeye joins the rest of the gang in making fun of him, like Period of Adjustment or Goodbye Cruel World, would happen because Hawkeye is pretty ride or die for his besties.

They'd do bits, but briefly and casually rather than prolonged imo, like the jokey couple exchange in Out of Sight eg. LOTS of exchanges where they pretend to be a couple in general ofc, but tragically I know in my soul that it would mostly be Klinger taking the feminine role lol, and that would probably be the only disappointment for me. But maybe they'd trade off regularly even with the crossdressing - I mean if Hawkeye regularly makes jokes about women fucking him it would hardly be a stretch. And if that were the case I'd probably ship them. They have that platonic gay friends energy in canon but if they were partnered up as a duo I think that would change, because Hawkeye's Hawkeye and I can't not ship him with his bffs considering how he looks at them.

And there would be at least a couple of episodes where Hawkeye does drag for a scheme or a bit or a prank and Klinger helps him out.

[thebreakfastgenie]

Where do you think each of the Mash characters ends up professionally post-series? Charles probably just picks up where he left off but I’m always so torn on whether Hawkeye remains a surgeon and/or whether BJ goes into private practice or works at a hospital. Does anyone pick up specialties you think? BJ is pretty early in his career right so he could still specialize and I don’t think we ever heard if Frank or Trapper had specific areas of practice.

I think Charles picks up where he left off professionally. At the end of the show he's accepted a position as head of thoracic surgery at Boston Mercy (which is not a real hospital but it's fiiiiiine). I think Charles has more changes in his personal life as a result of his experiences in Korea, but his professional trajectory is pretty unaffected.

I personally think Hawkeye only stays in Crabapple Cove for a year or two and then goes back to surgery. I think it could go either way, that's just the ending I prefer for him. I think it's more thematically in keeping with his arc in GFA that shows him permanently altered but well on the road to recovery (though with a long way to go) by the end. He successfully operates on that little girl. I think that "at least for a while" means a lot. It totally makes sense to me that Hawkeye would want a break from a high-paced surgical career and also that he'd want to spend some time with his dad after being away for three years. But I don't think he's turning away from surgery forever. It's a huge part of who he is. That being said, Sidney has this line that says "it might make being a surgeon harder but it might make you a better doctor" and I think that very specifically phrasing is planting the idea that Hawkeye doesn't have to be a surgeon to practice medicine. I still like to think he does because I love the idea of Hawkeye applying that empathy and desire to not treat patients on assembly line to the work of being a better surgeon. I'm really conflicted on whether I think he goes back to the city or not though. Dr. Richard Hornberger, the author of the original novel, practiced surgery at a clinic in Waterville, Maine while living in Bremen (the town Crabapple Cove is based on). Hawkeye has a number of self-insert traits, but book Hawkeye is fairly different from show Hawkeye, so I'm not necessarily using that as a roadmap. But it does tell me it's possible for Hawkeye to have a surgical practice in Maine so I like the option of splitting the difference between Hawkeye going to Boston or some place to work in a large hospital and Hawkeye staying in Crabapple Cove forever.

I think BJ is a general surgeon. He is fresh out of residency when he arrives, although I think Hawkeye was too in the beginning (most MASH unit surgeons were) so he could decide to do specialized training after the war, but he seems to like general surgery and he's good at it. Medicine worked differently in the 50s than it does now; nowadays almost everything is owned by a large hospital system, but back then the way to make money was in private practice. Doctors who chose to keep working in hospitals usually did it because they wanted to do more training, they wanted to help as many people as possible, or later in their careers because they wanted to teach younger doctors. I could easily see all those motives applying to BJ. I could also easily see BJ working in private practice to better support his family. He also mentions that his father and grandfather are doctors, so it's possible he has the option of joining a family practice. At the end of the day, I think it's going to come down to what option has the most regular hours. BJ is a 9-5 surgeon (when he has a choice, which obviously he does not in Korea) in my opinion. Not because he's less dedicated to his patients, but because he's the only one who actually has a good work-life balance. Spending time with his family is BJ's priority, so he's going take a position where emergency calls are infrequent. That's probably a private practice but he could potentially have that in a hospital too.

In the original novel and film, Trapper is the thoracic surgeon, but the show made Hawkeye the thoracic surgeon instead and specifies that Trapper is not. In the show he appears to be a general surgeon. I like that for him. In the second book he teaches Hawkeye thoracic surgery, and I'm not opposed to an inversion of that, not involving Hawkeye but just Trapper deciding to learn an additional specialty when he gets home, especially because he worked on chest cases in Korea when Hawkeye wasn't available. I tend to think Trapper continues working at a hospital in Boston. It's fun to think he could work at the same hospital as Charles but I wouldn't say I default to that headcanon. Trapper John MD is a different Trapper to me (and legally, officially that show is a spinoff of the MASH movie, not the show, as a way of settling some dispute I don't remember the details of) so that's not a factor here.

I think Frank is a general surgeon, but Frank is, well... Frank. He's actually not a bad surgeon in the beginning, he just does poorly under pressure (which makes him terribly suited to his position) and has a lousy bedside manner (not uncommon) and isn't as good as Trapper and Hawkeye. In the book, Frank never did a residency, he just joined his father's private practice straight out of med school (yeah you could get away with that back then). When Frank leaves the show he's given a position I think at the VA? He'd do that for a while but for all his bluster he doesn't enjoy army life very much and I think he ultimately wants the status of private practice, though of course he'd tell stories about his time in Korea all the time. I could see Frank leaving medicine to write books or run for office eventually. Also I could totally see him as a hospital administrator.

I think Margaret stays in the army for a little while. There seems to be some confusion among fans about this but Margaret is not leaving the army at the end of the series finale. She's just taking a stateside post as an army nurse instead of taking one of the promotions her father arranged that would involve leaving nursing. My thoughts on Margaret evolved when I saw that Loretta Swit thought Margaret would be a nurse in Vietnam. I think Margaret continues working as an army nurse, focusing on medicine but feeling that's where she can do the most good, while gradually becoming more disillusioned with the army. When Vietnam starts up she goes over there as a nurse because she wants to help, and that experience completes the disillusionment that started in Korea and when her tour of duty is done she retires from the army and starts working as a civilian nurse.

I don't really have thoughts on what the non-medical personnel do, besides, Klinger and Mulcahy's futures not being AfterMASH. I think Klinger and Soon-Lee move back to the United States once they find her family, maybe a year or so after the end of the show, but I don't really have thoughts about what Klinger does. I like the idea of Father Mulcahy sticking with working with the Deaf community, maybe in a school or something. Radar is running his family's farm although I'm not completely opposed to the idea of him selling the farm after his mother dies and finding a career where he can use the skills he demonstrated as company clerk. He doesn't become a cop though, WALTER is not real and can't hurt you.

[windmilltothestars]

I love the M*A*S*H episodes where Hawkeye doesn't have much of his own storyline, so his role in the episodes is just to do something goofy in the background and show up to support other characters in their struggles and storylines. Take "Stars and Stripes". Hawkeye's only plot in that episode is that he's bored and no one will hang out with him; he spends most of it in the Officer's Club trying to get people to play Scrabble with him. And yet his scenes where he supports, advises and commiserates with Margaret about her failing relationship with Scully just because she crosses his path are wonderfully sweet and moving! Or "The Young and the Restless." Hawkeye's only plot is that he's really tired and circumstances will not let him get any sleep. And yet still riding on acute sleep deprivation he manages to - a) with BJ's help, convince/strong-arm Potter into resting and not aggravating his injury, b) in the OR, he goes seamlessly from supporting young Simmons in standing up to and undermining Charles's bullying/condescension to playing along gamely with Klinger's scheme-of-the-week in pretending he thinks he's in Toledo, c) go on to help take care of Charles when he gets drunk and depressed about the Simmons situation.

In "Showtime" he sort of has a plot about being on the receiving end of Frank's pranking, but his biggest scenes in the episode are when he supports and comforts Mulcahy when he's struggling with not knowing how much good he's doing, supports Trapper when he's struggling with a declining patient, and commiserates with and advises Henry when he's depressed about missing the birth of his son.

In the first "Mail Call" he laughs about the overlarge cardigan he got in the mail from his sister and sets up the "Pioneer Aviation" prank on Frank, but he doesn't have his own plot of struggling with something he got in the mail. Instead, he goes straight from advising and then showing pride in Radar about being honest with his pen pal to desperately trying to stop a drunk and depressed Trapper from deserting and getting shot or arrested over an impulse decision. And later in "Mail Call Three" he has one goofy little plotline about getting salacious love letters that were addressed to a different Benjamin Pierce, but spends the better part of the episode trying to convince BJ that Peg's news from home isn't terrible; and after failing that and simply putting a drunken BJ to bed, goes straight on to offering Radar heartfelt and personal advice about giving his mom's boyfriend a chance.

And there are probably more examples, but these are just the ones I was thinking about. Anyway, the point is that for all Hawkeye is the main character and he has a number of excellent plotlines of his own (and frankly a few that are not-so-excellent XD), he still shines as a great friend and a lovable character even when he's playing a supporting role in a story that isn't about him!!

[serpercival]

ship kiss prompt thing #50 foxtrap traphawk?? mayhaps. or beejtrap honestly or beejtraphawk I DONT CARE JUST FOXTRAP 🙏🙏

YAYYY FOXTRAP! This is just traphawk but given it's in the Mating Habits verse BJ's around in the background :3 Let's call it beejtraphawk just for my sanity of putting it on my list of prompted ficlets

beej(fox)traphawk, out of love

Watching Trapper play with the kids was always one of the highlights of Hawkeye’s day. Of course, the actual mechanics of play differed wildly depending on which kid it was. When Becky and Kathy were young enough for it, it had been board games. Erin had always liked playing pretend, though she had a penchant for casting Trapper as a fae creature in a way that he’d never admit made him uncomfortable despite the fact that it clearly did.

With JT, it was the same way four-legged foxes played with their kits. All physical. Trapper laughed and squinted and wagged his tail hard enough that it made noise against the carpet as he lay on his back and held JT over him, arguing with him in the language Hawkeye had never been able to get more than the beginnings of a grasp on.

“Hey, Hawk,” Trapper called, lowering JT to let him run off somewhere else. “Come help me up?”

Hawkeye rolled his eyes as performatively as possible. “I’m sitting here looking this cozy” — he gestured down at himself, blanket in his lap, book in one hand, hot cocoa in the other — “and you expect me to get up?”

Trapper fluttered his eyelashes. “Pretty please? You’ll get a reward.”

Hawkeye sighed. He put on a hell of an act as he got up, groaning and complaining and generally making a nuisance of himself.

When he offered a hand to Trapper, Trap yanked him down to the floor and swapped their positions so he was laying on top of Hawkeye.

“Want your reward now, or later?” Trapper purred, head tilted and tail wagging.

“A little of both?”

Trapper’s lips met Hawkeye’s nose, then his chin, then his lips, tongue darting into Hawkeye’s mouth for only the briefest moment before he pulled away. “I like that,” he murmured. “Little now,” another kiss, followed with the bite of Trapper’s fangs against Hawkeye’s bottom lip, “a little later,” another kiss, more forceful, hands finding Hawkeye’s waist to pin him down, “and maybe a lot more tonight, huh?”

Hawkeye nodded, barely holding his whine inside when Trapper dipped in to scent-mark along his jaw. “The minute BJ gets home.”

“The minute the kids are asleep,” Trapper corrected.

“Sounds like you think I can’t keep quiet.”

Trapper grinned with a low chitter, fangs on full display. “Not after what I’m gonna do to ya.”

[riverofliver]

Ok, but I'm sort of tempted to make a medieval M*A*S*H AU, set during the second outbreak of plague in the 15th century.

Btw, parenthesis give historical context.

Hawkeye would be a plague doctor of course, he was travelling past the village when the quarantine orders where set by the king, and the village's gates were closed.

You could do the same as Hawkeye's with a bit off difference in the story line for Trapper or Bj.

Potter/Henry could be the Steward (The person who watches over a lord's village when their gone)

There is a lot of things you could do for Radar, perhaps the Steward's scribe, clerk, or manservant.

Frank, the magistrate.

Margret could be Frank's second hand, except and in everything except name is the magistrate, and manages the workers. (Girls where often taught to prepare herbs and treat wounds back then, so you could probably throw that in that she's actually a really good nurse or apothecary and help Hawkeye etc.)

Mulchany, the friar of course, (Friars travel instead of staying in one place like a priest, so I like the idea he is stuck there too.)

Klinger, a seamstress or tailor. Perhaps he came to close up the shop for a dead uncle or something and gets stuck working it.

For other minor characters, you could have Igor own the village's Tavern, and maybe have some of the other enlisted men and nurses work for Frank and Margret.

Am I actually going to write this? Probably no, I suck at writing fanfics. Maybe I'll do some art or something later on, but I just thought this was a fun idea. Btw, it probably wouldn't be very historically accurate but meh, the show doesn't really care about that anyways.

[t00thpasteface]

I’m doing a MASH rewatch because I’m mentally well, and I am a Hawcahy lover like all good red blooded Americans, but I was curious if you had any thoughts or opinions on Klinger / Mulcahy? Even from Klinger’s second appearance with the grenade scene I found myself watching for their shared scenes, though it’s clearly significantly less popular if AO3 tags are to be believed.

You can also use this to discuss the various Hawkeye ships (of which there are rightfully many) and any other MASH pairings you enjoy or maybe don’t partake in! I’m always here for more MASH content

they are VERY GOOD AND I LIKE THEM. klinger is a LOT of fun and there's definitely some kind of weird circuitous Recognition Through The Other i get with him as a butch lesbian. my whole life i've always felt like i'm some ugly bony man in drag whenever i dress girly so i feel really vaildated seeing how klinger fucking slayyyyyys in whatever he wears and has a blast wearing it. so naturally anything that makes klinger happy makes me happy!!! 🫡

i think i said it before a loonnnng time ago though but i'm just not really much of a multishipper! never have been... idk what it is but once a ship takes root in my brain i don't really multiship any of the people in it. there are very few exceptions to this. i have NO idea why i'm like this but i'm just Very Particular.

and hawkahy just fucking SEIZED me somehow so it got first dibs. my first exposure to mash was catching some season 7 episodes on retro tv, so when i happened to see hawkeye freaking out in a cave and mulcahy volunteering to be helicopter ballast back-to-back, i latched onto mulcahy first like "omg look at that little guy he's trying so hard" and then secondarily looked at hawkeye like "omg it's a womanizing sleazeball with a heart of gold i love those exact guys!!" and my go-to method of shipping is My Favorite x My Second Favorite, sooo that's how the cookie crumbled... :P

also basically as soon as i told my mom i was watching mash she was like “we need to watch the movie!!” and i was weirdly compelled by hawkeye and mulcahy teaming up to save painless??? mulcahy gets shoved out of the frame by the others when he's introduced but seeks out hawkeye later like hey you're the only one i trust to help me... and then it colored how i watched the show afterwards. i was like hang on. really interesting to see where these freaks can find a common ground between them in their respective approaches to pacifism and sacrifice. also my mom ships them. lulz

i also think traphawk and beejhawk are fun too BUT as a lesbian who does a lot of weird gay shit with her 2 straight roommates (one of whom has a bf) because THEY started it, i also find it VERY funny to just interpret hawkeye and trapper/bj with that angle of out-and-proud queer doing weird gay shit with his arguably straight (or latently bicurious) roommates as a form of entertainment/bonding/hazing. bc it's like [leonardo dicaprio pointing.jpeg] like we call each other pookie and slap each other on the ass so whatever hawkeye is doing to those men is just Normal to me

[mylittleredgirl]

Do you think the 4077th is getting the same patients over and over again because of the loop? If so do you think they’re aware of that?

And what do you think of the idea that early seasons MASH (Henry and Trapper John) is a different version of the loop taking place over the same years as the later seasons (Potter and BJ), and Flagg is responsible for changing things?

ooh exciting questions! so the colonel flagg thing was a manic midnight joke, but it does hold up that like daniels, his primary role falls into the "can you PLEASE stop 'helping'??" honestly i don't enjoy the colonel flagg episodes so i wasn't going to get super deep into recoding them into this theory, but now that you have asked i'm definitely going to think about it more!

they're definitely aware that they get the same patients again and again (identifying each other's past stitches, etc), but i don't think they're actually aware that they are in a time distortion. they seem to have vague feelings about it, but it's not sci-fi, they're stuck with only the language they have in their own genre (what day is it, what day is it).

this ask is inspiring me to find the draft i had of my full technobabble explanation for the temporal anomaly for my real trekkie nerds. if i get some work breaks this weekend, i will!

[oh-captain4077]

Over the past few months I’ve spent a lot more time than I should getting my buddy into M*A*S*H because he reminds me of BJ, here are the hits from tonight, where he has finished ‘Abssynia, Henry’, ‘Welcome To Korea’ parts one and two, as well as ‘Change in Command’

The obvious outrage and heartbreak at Henry’s death. He then pointed out that one of the last things we see Henry do is hug Radar and in the very next scene is the readout. I consoled him by informing him that none of the actors actually knew that Henry was going to be killed until the scene was filmed. This did not help. To be honest it didn’t help me either.

Immediately jumping onto ‘Welcome to Korea’ he is, appropriately outraged that Trapper is gone as well but recovers quickly upon seeing BJ (Just like Hawkeye) and claims he is, quote, “no longer upset about Trapper” which is also fair. He didn’t update me past that but I think it speaks for itself.

Upon reaching ‘Chain of Command’ my dear friend has already dealt with so much change and its been a rollercoaster but I knew he’d like Potter. His first reaction? “Thats a lot of horse pictures my guy”, 15 minutes or so later comes back with commentary about how Potter went from “keep your noses clean” to getting smashed with the boys and talking shop about the still. I was then informed that our friendship is over and I have been cast aside in favor of Col. Sherman Potter.

[hawkeyeslaughter]

i think the really interesting thing about frank burns is that he isn’t all bad . he’s insufferable and annoying and most of the things that happen to him he brings upon himself but deep down , really , he isn’t a bad person . in germ warfare when they get the korean p.o.w and frank’s all snotty about it , but at the end he’s playing cards or something ( ? ) with him . in chief surgeon , who ? he humbles himself enough to ask hawkeye for help at the end . in sticky wicket he concedes that “ anyone could have missed that “ . in carry on , hawkeye , he comes with henry and margaret to check on flu - stricken hawkeye and says “ good work , buddy “ ( in a genuine fashion it seems to me ) . so like , it’s not like frank is above a lesson learned . i think the worst thing about him is his ignorance , in which hawkeye and trapper ( and at times , margaret ) have to help him with . and while he may be resistant at first , he never rejects a lesson learned .

i think the other thing is that frank is very much of the “ if you can’t be liked be feared “ mindset . from what we know of his home life and his past it wasn’t like he was treated nicely a lot of the time and it doesn’t seem like a whole lot of people like him there , either . being feared / respected is the next best thing , so frank goes about that except he’s not very good at that , either . but it’s not like he doesn’t want to be liked ! i think a big thing is that he does want hawkeye and trapper ( and later bj ) to like him because they’re so effortlessly likable . and he’s jealous that they are because they shouldn’t be by every rule in the book . see , in frank’s eyes they do nothing but break rules and they’re beloved for it , while he follows the rules and is hated . it’s unfair . so i think that just adds to his struggle with them because , like i said , he wants to be liked by the it girls of camp but at the same time they go against every single one of his own principles .

hawkeye and trapper ( and again , later bj ) sort of do like him in a frenemies sort of way . like , there are instances of hawkeye and trapper sort of looking out for him and noticing when something’s wrong with him and margaret ( even if they tease him for it ) and even at times , though very rarely , acknowledging his medical skills . i think they regard him as someone mostly harmless and someone easy to pick on but at the end of the day they’ll have his back if they need to . and honestly they’re not even really that mean to him , they just point out when he’s being ridiculous and the pranks aren’t even really that bad ( with a few exceptions even i can admit were crossing a line or two ) .

hawkeye/trapper/bj’s begrudging bit of fondness , however little they ( and we ) have have for him , circles back to the fact that he does have at least some good in him . frank’s values , however misguided , are overall well - intentioned . he believes to be good he must be a good officer and serve his country , he must be a good christian ( although his interpretation of being a good christian is somewhat skewed as well ) . but i have to believe , because frank genuinely does have his moments as aforementioned , that his skewed ideology is very much a product of his time and place .

for their time and place hawkeye and trapper and bj are pretty progressively written ( not perfect , mind you ) , and next to them frank is ridiculous . why ? well , think of colonel flagg . colonel flagg is so ridiculous he makes even frank look normal , but colonel flagg is very obviously a comical and satirical interpretation of people’s paranoia over communism and foreign affairs etc etc . he’s frank if you multiplied his frank - ness by ten . so we have flagg as a comical interpretation compared to frank and we have frank as a comical interpretation compared to hawkeye and co .

yet the audience can’t help but feel a little sorry for frank … have a little soft spot for him … because , like i mentioned before . the reason we have sympathy for frank and not flagg is ( 1 ) flagg is very obviously just there for comedic purposes and ( 2 ) i think it just boils down to the fact that frank is a product of a much less progressive place and time and because of his desire to fit in , like i talked about before , he doesn’t go out of his way to adopt progressive ideologies . why ? because he just doesn’t interact with anyone who has them until he meets hawkeye and trapper , and like i talked about before he already has a whole other problem with them and even if he didn’t he’s too set in his ways . i don’t know . it’s just really interesting to think about frank because i genuinely think he’s a lot more complicated of a character than we give him credit for

anyways idk thanks for listening to my frank burns character analysis and i’m sorry

[rescue-ram]

💕, 🥳, 💡, 🔮

💕 What is your favorite fic that you’ve written?

Of the fics I consider Finished, I'm shouting out Making the Most of It. REALLY happy with how that came out :)

🥳 Why did you start writing fanfic?

I think I was in 3rd grade, maybe 2nd- I typed "Digimon Stories" into Google and was delighted to find stories about my favorite show. I was so little I didn't totally understand how to navigate websites, and thought you just got 20 random stories every day, so you can imagine my :D when I discovered the "next" button and how to use the search feature lol. I don't remember my first fic exactly, but I wrote it after the movie came out and it was some insane Digimon crack fic lol.

I just really wanted to make up my own stories about my favorite stories, and I've always had an affection for plucky guys I felt got done wrong by fandom and wanted to do better to make people understand why I loved them so much- I wrote fanfic about Davis from Digimon and Boromir from LOTR. The only fic I left up on FFnet was an HP fic that I might port over to AO3 and revise, and maybe finish or at least add authors notes of my outline, because I do mostly like what I had, but for Obvious Reasons have not been super motivated to write for that fandom in recent years lol.

💡How many WIPs do you currently have?

Oooh okay, a lot of things in the hopper, let me categorize:

Actively Working On

Truly unhinged Hawnk fic for kinktober kfkfkfk

The Courage To Be

Star Wars fic 'Resolute'

Actively Pondering/Nibbling On

CharHawk Fake Dating

HouliHawk role play fail

Two age play fics that are similar in tone, one CharHawk and one Hawkahy- not sure if either will get finished, but don't think I'll write both, so pondering options

Hawkeye "turns into a cat" gen fic

Hawkeye Goes To California and BJ Goes To Maine at the same time without telling the other and swap lives for about two weeks.

Two post-war fics, one that is a sequel to Making the Most of It and one that's more focused on Daniel and Hawkeye's relationship, although BJ and Trapper are both there. Pretty distinct, but with enough overlap I need to pick one to prioritize to make sure I don't write too similar of scenes between them.

Soft Hibernation

The next part of my Rescue Bots fic- I know what the next bit will be, touched the doc last month, but not actively working on it

Under the Banner of Heaven case fic/undercover in a gay bar fic. Haven't worked on this in a few months, but I still really like the idea

Hibernation

X-Men Band AU. Been over a year since I worked on it, although I have a pretty good outline for a lot of what needs writing

1920s X Men AU. Soft abandoned, I remember some of my ideas for this but don't think I'll write it.

Succession KenStewy fic. I have some scenes and an outline, but it's hard to get in these assholes (affectionate) POV...

Captain America Clone Fic I haven't touched in almost a decade now god help me. Functionally abandoned but I still think on it occasionally kgkdjdkd.

🔮 Any advice for writers working through burnout or writer’s block?

Keep pondering, keep nibbling, and don't be afraid to shelve an idea and come back to it later. Fanfic is supposed to be for fun after all lfkdjjd

I have found it helpful to make the world's worst outline to act as a kind of checklist document and help connect scenes of I get stuck at one point and need to skip ahead a little.

I also like to try and focus on an emotional vibe to carry the fic, which helps get in the characters head so I can get in that trance state where the little guys are Doing Things and I just have to write it down kfjdjf. Sometimes I have an idea I like but it takes some pondering to find an emotional angle to connect with the character that makes sense as to why they are Doing The Plot, so nailing that angle before I commit to writing helps...

If I start getting bogged down in research I do the "five link" rule, where I only let myself read five things about the topic, try and cobble together enough of an explanation to pass a sniff test, then move on kgkrkrkdj

Also with skipping, the Sticking Point comes when I get too far ahead and then lose motivation for the part I was writing. Trying desperately to avoid this with my two multi-parters rn jdkdjd. Only letting myself write one or two scenes ahead helps a little...

[remyfire]

tbf re the “just because a bigger writer did it better” I think is not so much a deterrent bc plagiarism but more “who is going to pick mine to read vs that” which isn’t a good way to think but is probably a mindset folks have had before

You're right!! I mentioned that because in a past fandom, I had a friend who left her very popular fic unfinished when she left the fandom, and about three years later a new author to the fandom had clearly taken her entire unfinished fic, gone through and changed the wording here and there, and expected nobody to notice, and it still really grinds my gears to think about haha.

That being said, now I am going to ramble about my own personal experiences as a writer in this fandom. I have no idea if this will be helpful for anyone else to read, but my experiences are the only ones I can pull from, so here we go. I'm gonna be referring to the royal you in this, btw, so anon pls don't think I'm just throwing a million paragraphs at you specifically hkdfds

Okay, who is going to pick yours to read versus that other fic? A good thing to remember is that new people come into the fandom all the time. These readers have no idea who the Big Fic Authors are. Sure, sometimes they'll ask for recs or sort the ship tag they're curious about by highest kudos or hits or whatever, but a lot of times they'll just pull up the ship tag and start browsing from whatever was most recently updated, so if your fic that you're nervous about trying a trope out on is the most recently updated one, that's what they're gonna open up. Before you know it, you are the author they associate with that trope, and they're going to remember your fic so incredibly fondly even if they do eventually trip over the Big Fic Author's fic from two or three months or years ago dealing with the same trope. Yours will likely still live larger in their heads because it was their first and they loved it so much.

People typically remember me for two big fics, Scratching the Itch and Just A Drink Away From Honesty. I actually didn't read many fics before I began writing Scratching the Itch because I didn't want my characterization to be influenced by others, so when I discovered that me writing Hawk as inexperienced with men and BJ as experienced with men was counter to fanon, I was incredibly surprised. I got a massive positive response from it. The massage scene in particular received really lovely reviews. Suddenly I was the person a lot of people associated Experienced Beej and Massage Fic with.

Imagine my delight when I did begin reading older fics—ones from 2017 through 2021 or so—and saw, A, a remarkable amount of inexperienced Hawk/experienced Beej and, B, extremely evocative massage-centric fics centering Hawk and BJ. I hadn't actually pioneered anything. I'd simply picked tropes that resonated with me and just wrote. And now I got to go back and read authors who maybe will never know my name but who loved those same tropes and wrote them fucking beautifully. I'm still thrilled to bits about it.

Same with Just A Drink Away From Honesty. Glory holes are my favorite underutilized smut storytelling device. This isn't the first time I've written about one and it won't be the last. Readers ate it up. It's far and above my most popular Trapper and Hawk fic and I imagine it always will be.

Again, I was delighted when I started looking back at older fics and saw a few glory hole ones had already been written. You mean I get to read these and my own? Two cakes!! Two delicious cakes that I am devouring whole!!!

Even more interestingly, when I finally started reading those old '17-'21 fics, I literally began finding phrases that I wrote into my fic that I had not previously seen before. I found someone's Trapper saying that Hawk was the best I ever had and I remembered being so !!! because that was such an essential dialogue moment in JADAFH. Again, I had not revolutionized a damn thing. These authors were the PEAK Big Fic Authors of their time—and yet now so few readers have a clue who they are. They can't name their fics.

In three or four years, readers aren't gonna know who RemyFire is. My fics aren't gonna stand the test of time. New authors will come in and pick up the gauntlet and spin their own beautiful, sexy, aching stories. Honestly? That excites the hell out of me. Writing is always going to be new and fresh no matter who did something first.

Anyway, people are gonna remember your fics over That Fic (whatever it is) because you're gonna write it beautifully and your fic is gonna be their That Fic. But for that to happen, you have to write it first. Again, this is the royal you. Whoever is reading this, if you need the nudge to write it scared, I'm handing it to you. If you need encouragement to get started, come send me an ask. And if you write something that you're excited about, let me know so I can read it and squeal in delight!!

[marley-manson]

what evidence do you have that bj and hawkeye are only friends because they are "trapped in an army base" and "hawkeye doesn't have any better options"?

tbf I didn't say they're only friends because they're trapped on an army base, I said BJ only gets away with his late season shit because they're trapped on an army base. That said, I do think if they'd met anywhere else, like at a medical conference, they wouldn't have become friends, and yeah the way they clash in the later seasons, I don't think they'd stay friends if Hawkeye wasn't stuck with him.

My evidence is:

Hawkeye describing BJ as a good clean-cut family man and adding "Despite that, I really like the guy," in Our Finest Hour, indicating that on a surface level they're not that compatible. On a deeper level of incompatibility, you have episodes like Preventative Medicine where they clash on a deep ethical level and don't reconcile their points, they simply choose to drop the argument. You also have their respective attitudes to hardship as highlighted in later seasons - BJ "saves [his] pshaws for things he can do something about," and largely remains passive give or take moments of sudden lashing out (eg the end of Back Pay) when he loses his self control, while Hawkeye is always acting on his feelings as much as possible whether he can affect change or not, because it helps him not feel helpless. BJ derides and mocks this attitude (calling him crazy in Back Pay and Tell it To the Marines, calling his tongue depressor tower pointless in Depressing News, etc) and Hawkeye ignores him and does what he needs to do anyway. They do not help each other see eye to eye or meet in the middle, they simply clash and do their own thing.

More headcanony, but I also think they're incompatible emotionally, in that Hawkeye wants people to open up to him and spill their feelings, and BJ is one of the characters most allergic to doing that, and almost never supports Hawkeye when he wants to talk about his feelings (Blood and Guts, Depressing News, GFA, etc). They have a very uneven relationship where Hawkeye is BJ's emotional support whenever BJ snaps, but BJ ditches Hawkeye when Hawkeye just needs his emotional support (this is what "Would you hold me in your arms or would you let me lie there and bleed?" is about), and I think BJ tries to make up for this with big gestures, but Hawkeye is more about the day to day support and solidarity with each other.

There's also the intensity of the rebound vibe in Welcome to Korea part 1 where Hawkeye refocuses on BJ after moping about Trapper and seems to deliberately explore how compatible they can be as friends - the babysitter comment to suss out whether he'd be a partner in womanizing, his willingness to break rules and flout authority, his sense of humour. BJ passes, so Hawkeye accepts him. It feels calculated because Hawkeye needs a replacement Trapper. ("We need to get him started on his ulcer," as potential evidence of Hawkeye wanting him to be Trapper 2.0)

BJ's attitude throughout season 4, in which he stamps out his own reactions and feelings to align himself with Hawkeye. The Bus has a thread of a battle of wills between Hawkeye and BJ over whether or not to include Frank, which Hawkeye wins. In Hey Doc he also wants Hawkeye to be nicer to Frank, but in the rest of the season he's right there with Hawkeye making fun of him. In The Gun BJ stands respectfully when Margaret comes to their table and Hawkeye glares at him disapprovingly, so then BJ turns it into a joke, seemingly correcting his own behaviour.

Wheelers and Dealers characterizes BJ as resentful in a way that makes him passive aggressive, which rings very true to his character to me. In Wheelers and Dealers he bemoans being so nice and passive and lashes out. "Who cares about what they want, I'm doing what I want for a change." This obviously says that he buries parts of himself to make nice with people habitually, as part of how he interacts with people, and I think you can see him doing it with Hawkeye early on.

You also have episodes like Heroes and Stars and Stripes where BJ alternately mocks Hawkeye for getting the spotlight and lords his own spotlight over Hawkeye, because he's insecure and presumably feels overshadowed by Hawkeye.

This is all to support my take that BJ moulds himself to suit Hawkeye because they're not intrinsically all that compatible as people, and he resents being the one to do that. So later BJ lashing out with mean pranks and psychological warfare (Bottoms Up, Dear Uncle Abdul, Joker Is Wild, what feels to me like negging in No Laughing Matter, etc) and ditching/mocking Hawkeye when he's upset about something (Back Pay, Depressing News, Give Em Hell Hawkeye, Blood and Guts, etc) is a response to that resentment when he feels more secure in Hawkeye putting up with it.

I think BJ would probably mould himself to fit anyone he wants to be friends with, but I don't think if given the option, he'd choose to be friends with Hawkeye. He disapproves of several things about Hawkeye even initially - his aforementioned lack of patience with Frank, his rampant sexuality (eg he does disapprove of Hawkeye sleeping with Carlye in The More I See You, and you also have several instances of BJ making fun of Hawkeye when it comes to his attitude towards sex, eg Taking the Fifth, Inga). And I don't think Hawkeye would choose to be friends with a monogamous married suburbanite if they weren't forced together right after Hawkeye lost his last war zone bff.

My evidence for Hawkeye only putting up with BJ's late season attitude because he's trapped is that he tries to put his foot down multiple times and fails because a) the 4077 is a very small world, and b) BJ needs his emotional support in a war zone. And every time he comes back they don't address what they fought over or discuss it or reconcile it, they simply drop it because they're reliant on their friendship.

In Ain't Love Grand he sleeps in the front office but comes back to share good news with BJ and emotionally support him. In The Most Unforgettable Characters they drop the fight because it upsets Radar without addressing why they were fighting. In Picture This Margaret manipulates Hawkeye into going back to BJ by lying about BJ needing his support. In The Joker is Wild and Bottoms Up Hawkeye mildly pranks BJ back in a tag and calls them even even though he's taking a loss.

It's also worth noting that Hawkeye hates BJ's friend Leo's extremely weaponized style of pranking. He's fine with shit like exploding cigars, not fine with him getting BJ court martialed. BJ is fine with it and thinks it's funny, which strikes me as another unaddressed incompatibility that feeds into the vibe of BJ's pretty intense psychological warfare later on, which Hawkeye is generally upset by rather than seeing it as all good fun.

And in GFA they both initially intend to leave without seeing each other again, BJ trying to leave a week early despite knowing his travel orders are sus and without saying goodbye or leaving a note, and Hawkeye expecting and ecstatic to be flown home when released from the hospital only to be ordered back to the 4077 for one more week. Also in GFA Hawkeye says goodbye for good, fully expecting to never see BJ again and sad about it but accepting.

Oh also the fact that Welcome to Korea is structured as a series of horrible things happening in a war zone that bond them together through shared trauma is another piece of strong evidence for the reading that being in a warzone together and needing each others' support is why they become friends, when otherwise they might not look twice at each other.

Ultimately you can take all this stuff and also interpret it as two guys who fall in genuine love/intense friendship and put up with each other because of that, but I think there's more than enough evidence that them being trapped together in hell is a major reason they become and stay friends, and imo it's a solid reading of their relationship, and also infinitely more interesting to me.

[thebreakfastgenie]

I wonder if contemporary MASH audiences projected onto BJ the way modern mashblr does. Modern fans, who tend to be progressive, tend to assume BJ is one of them. But most of what the show actually tells us about BJ is just that he's an affable family man. We project progressive values onto him because we see him as a good guy. It helps that he's associated with Hawkeye, but in the later seasons so is Margaret, who is conservative. So I wonder if when the show was on, liberal viewers and conservative viewers both assumed he was one of them. BJ is just given precious few opportunities to establish political views of his own. Hawkeye and Trapper have episodes like George and For the Good of the Outfit. When Hawkeye is making political statements in the later seasons, BJ often takes the role of a moderating influence for narrative convenience--the writers judged it more interested if he wasn't in lockstep with Hawkeye. When BJ does get to take positions, it's basic stuff like "war is bad" or "racism is bad," statements even conservative characters sometimes agree with, and indeed in real life there were plenty of conservatives who held these positions. I tend to headcanon BJ as fairly apolitical because that's what I see, but I don't think he was written that one purpose, I think the show just became less political in the later years.

[serpercival]

Hiiiii this is bfpierce hello I’m loving the fox!trapper series so far but i have one question that’s driving me INSANE so I’m completely new to this magical realism or whatever it’s called and his ears are driving me INSANE so i think in chapter like two or something of the mating habits of the American red fox it’s mentioned that these fox features developed later rather than him being born with it (unless I’m misremembering it lol i have read like ten chapters since then) so that makes me wonder does he have two sets of ears or just the fox ears? also ily mwah <3

HI HELLO!!!!! Aah I'm so excited to get an ask about this :3 In my head he only has the fox ears and I believe @trappper-johnathan has mentioned picturing the same. His hair's puffier thanks to the undercoat and he wears it a little bit longer to hopefully cover up the lack of normal ears so tbh from more than speaking distance it's probably a little hard to tell at first glance. I'm literally in the middle of writing a scene where BJ gets to do a pretty thorough exam and this is such a good reminder to include a bit about that dksghsghshg. It is, of course, extremely sexually charged.

I'm really into speculative biology thanks to following Biblaridion's Alien Biospheres from the very beginning and my subsequent mild insanity about what the hell Doctor Who's Time Lords look like on the inside, so one of the major things keeping me hooked on this concept has been trying to make all of these things vaguely anatomically possible. God knows if I'm succeeding. I've drawn diagrams but I am not an artist by any means so I sincerely doubt they would be helpful for anybody except for me.

Please send more asks if you have more questions, I would be unbelievably delighted to answer!!! It's made me so happy to see the positive response to fox!trapper, it's such a goofy concept but he is my best friend.

ALSO. Your Coda series has been so much fun! Loving every single piece of it. I'm deeply unwell about Requiem for a Lightweight and the fic associated with that episode knocked me out of the goddamn park.