#mash time loop theory
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time loop issues? try these shirts


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#couldn't resist making a mash themed one hee hee#and then the left i went with a pool looking water fill for the font a la palm springs#atlas shirts#mash#mash time loop theory#palm springs#groundhog day#can't leave the OG out of the tags#time loop
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“Sometimes,” BJ said once, as they stumbled back from the O club. “Sometimes…I think I’ve been here for five years.” “I’ve been here for fifty!” Hawkeye crowed. “Fifty lousy years!” “A hundred!” BJ added, whooping with delight as they crashed into the front door of the swamp. *** Time doesn't work like it should in the Mash 4077th. BJ just hopes they'll all live to see the end of the war.
#mash time loop theory#mash fic#mash#MY BEUAITFUL DAUGTHER OF A STORY#the one that kicked off my Hot Writing Summerrrrr#putting her back on the dash bc i missed her <3#my fic
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If mash hadn't given exact dates for certain things, then doubled back on those dates by years, by seasons, both of the show and of time (seasons like spring, summer), then I don't think the mash time loop theory would hold as much credence as it does. But as they did commit the mistake of giving specific dates to times, they fall into the time loop even more easily. The very nature of the show adds to it in the first place. The things they say, about have we been here before? Cue laughtrack. It makes it relatively simple to say yeah this is a time loop. There's more of course, the intrinsic cyclical nature of sitcoms/dramedies and eternal recurrence when it goes on along as mash, as an explanation for the consistent inconstancies in the timeline. And of adaptations being timeloops, having been a book then movie then show, this really has happened many times before. And there's also something to be said for the characters, and how they act about it and how this has happened before. How that is part of the war, it being repetitive and consistently purgatorial, it feeling as though they are stuck with no escape day in and day out, the same surgical theater, the same dirt ground, the same olive drab. It feels like a time loop to them, in not a real sense, but a metaphysical one. So they break up the monotonous horror with whatever they can. Much like how a person would act in a time loop, doing something anything they can to change the outcome they know will always occur. But maybe this time, they'll get out of it.
#mash#m*a*s*h#mashblr#mashposting#mash timeloop#b.text#time loops#adding this to the mash time loop theory video script.......
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The M*A*S*H Time Loop
This was pretty much just a stream of consciousness writing. I haven't looked at it much since I wrote it a couple of days ago but I wanted to post it anyway.
The sitcom M*A*S*H ran from 1972 to 1983 and captured households around America. The series follows M*A*S*H (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) unit 4077 through the Korean War. Knowledgable readers might have noticed that the Korean War lasted 3 years from June 1950 to July 1953 while the M*A*S*H series ran for 11 years from September 1972 to February 1983. This significant timeline difference created an interesting effect on M*A*S*H that led to many fans discussing the ‘M*A*S*H time loop theory.’ As the name would imply, this fan theory posits that the events of M*A*S*H do not take place during the Korean War as we know it, but instead that the show follows the 4077th as they are stuck in an endless time loop and are unable to escape the war.
Clearly, the timeline of M*A*S*H is a bit difficult to line up with the events of the actual Korean War due to the 8-year difference. Characters such as BJ Hunnicutt and Radar O’Riley were on the sitcom for 8 years but canonically it is difficult to say if they were meant to have spent the same amount of time in Korea. While the episodes were aired weekly, it is impossible to say if most of the episodes were meant to take place a week apart. There are several episodes for which we know this is not the case, for example, the season 9 episode ‘A War for All Seasons’ begins with the 4077th ringing in the new year and follows several key events throughout 1951 and ends on New Year’s Day 1952. This seems to imply that the previous 8 seasons all take place in 1950. It could also imply that subsequent episodes all take place in 1952 or later, though many assume that some episodes show events that were not seen in ‘A War for All Seasons.’ On the opposite end of the spectrum, several episodes take place over a matter of hours. The season 8 episode ‘Life Time’ happens essentially in real time as Hawkeye has only 20 minutes to complete an arterial graft on a wounded soldier. These and other episodes make creating a sensible timeline for the M*A*S*H series an incredibly complicated process. Trapper John leaves in the first episode of season 4, does this mean that he was only in Korea for 6 months? As mentioned earlier, Radar and BJ were on M*A*S*H for the same number of years, but Radar leaves before ‘A War for All Seasons,’ does this mean that Radar was enlisted for a year or less while BJ was present for 2 years? Does it matter how long any of these characters were engaged in the Korean War? The time loop theory certainly says no.
The nature of all sitcom television lends itself very well to the concept of a time loop. The show almost always resets itself at the end of every episode and it begins the next episode in essentially the same place. The order of the episodes often doesn’t matter. Everything is always happening, nothing happens, it doesn’t matter. In M*A*S*H specifically, one of the core themes of the show is the cyclical nature of war. It intentionally pokes fun at the repetition, the monotony with lines like ‘the future’s been canceled by the war department’ and ‘Father, what do you think of purgatory so far?’ as well as with aspects such as the omnipresent PA voice. Hawkeye Pierce becomes the main focus of the show and the audience's lens in many ways and as such is one of the easiest introductions to this concept. Hawkeye complains about being stuck nearly every episode and often phrases it as though he is not just stuck as a surgeon in a war zone, but as if his whole life is stuck, as if his past and future are all contained within the war. Another character giving credence to this theory is Radar O’Riley. Radar earned his nickname due to his uncanny ability to sense incoming wounded before anyone else and to predict what his commanding officers will ask for before they open their mouths. While this is certainly a fun gag for the show, many think it shows that Radar is aware, consciously or unconsciously, of the time loop. Radar is aware of when the choppers will arrive and when Henry needs files because it has all happened before and will happen again. Many fans also point out that this could be the reason for Radar’s reaction to Henry being sent home. It is more than just realizing that he will be left in Korea while the man he has come to see as a father figure goes home to his family. On some level, Radar remembers that Henry will not make it home; he knows he can not stop it. Of course one of the biggest pieces of evidence against the idea of a time loop is the fact that it does end. Everyone goes home in the end, however, this does not entirely disprove the theory. Many pieces of media that focus on the concept of time loops end with our protagonists escaping. But they can not escape entirely. Though all of our characters leave Korea by the end of the series, those who are still alive have not left completely. They will be stuck remembering this time forever.
While the original intention of M*A*S*H certainly was not to tell a story about a group of army doctors, nurses, and enlisted men trapped in a time loop, that is in many ways the story we got. It is the best showcase of the cycle, the monotonous horror of war in modern media. The only changes come with tragedy, death, or abandonment. It is a time loop in the only ways that matter.
#mash#m*a*s*h#mash 4077#m*a*s*h 4077#mash time loop#mash timeloop#time loop#timeloop#time loop theory#timeloop theory#hawkeye pierce#hawkeye#benjamin franklin pierce#bj hunnicutt#beej#radar o'reilly#walter o'reilly#trapper john mcintyre#trapper john#trapper mcintyre#trapper#mash writings#mash essay#mash theory#henry blake#sherman potter#margaret houlihan#mash analysis#m*a*s*h analysis
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person at this college event with a t shirt that says “please talk to me about the mash time loop” HELLO. mashblr is so tiny do you follow me. do i follow you
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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!
#chatter post#onsomekindofstartrek#eventually i'll come up with a theory for every incarnation 😂#mash time loop#mashblogging
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So my love of M*A*S*H comes from my dad loving it and watching it a lot while I was growing up, and today it was on so we were watching it, and I asked him if he had heard about the Radar being psychic theory, despite him not being really online in any sort of way. His response?
“I mean yeah they constantly showed that he would hear and know about things before they happened.”
So that’s just old news to him lmao
#he though the time loop/funkiness theory was a little far fetched though#my post#m*a*s*h#mash#my dad does truly love mash though
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This is more so for fun theory crafting, but given what we know about the Watcher Class, are there any figures in history that could fit the description of the class in the Nasuverse? Given Leviathan is a sort of demon or divine spirit, perhaps only gods or spirits can be summoned as a Watcher?
Good thing to send now, considering how much Trinity Metatronius was a game changer for Watcher and Sigma.
First, let's take a fresh look at the first bits of information we get about Watcher. Icarus explains that Watcher is not a real Extra Class, and that allows her circumvent the Fuyuki Grail rule that says Extra Classes can't be summoned as replacement for Saber, Archer, or Lancer. He adds that if summoned to real Extra Class, Moby Dick would be Gatekeeper.
Back in 2015, there wasn't much else we could extract from this. Hell, last month we were just as stuck. But now have two important keys to this riddle.
First is a second example of a new class being called "not a real Extra Class". Paladin is not a real Extra Class because it's a custom class Mash created to circumvent her growing incompatibility with the Shielder container and the issue of Heroic Spirits becoming time loops if they never died to become one. Watcher is likewise introduced as something that exists to circumvent an inconvenient rule, so we can speculate Watcher also gets the "not a real Extra Class" label because it's Moby Dick's custom class.
The other thing is a second example of a Gatekeeper. Galahad is described as a Gatekeeper, even if his gameplay class is Shielder, and one perk he ascribes to his Gatekeeper status is the ability to independently serve as a Master to other Servants.
To FGO's plot mechanics, Galahad's most important trait is carrying the Round Table, a symbol of many powerful heroes gathering together. This mirrors Watcher symbolizing the Belly of the Whale from The Hero's Journey and being able to produce silhouettes of 7 heroes defeated by their hubris to serve as her means of communication.
If we're going to work with scrapped content too, we know that the Watcher's proper class was going to be Shielder before "last-minute circumstances" (May 2016, around the time FGO part 2 was about to start being planned for real) forced him to change it to Gatekeeper, strengthening the connection between the examples here.
And while we are talking about cut content, Gatekeeper was originally the class created for Gilgamesh and ultimately scrapped in favor of letting him being a normal Archer. And Gil also shares Mash/Galahad's and Moby's common traits of having powers that engage with the general roster of the Throne of Heroes (he's the holder of everyone's Noble Phantasms) and being capable pulling off custom classes for themselves when need (he outright gives himself no class in CCC).
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Hi I'd like to ask about the mash timeloop theory is it so that they repeat every day as a timeloop or is it a loop that lasts 11 years? I know that there are some jokes that could be taken as them timelooping but is there like a primer of sorts with the rules of it? Does every character loop or only one of them?
Hi anon! Oh this is a fun question and thank you for giving me an excuse to talk about MASH and time loops. First off, I will say I don't think there's any one interpretation of the time loop idea that has any merit above others - some people see the time loop as being the act of re-watching MASH over and over, putting Hawkeye back in Korea after finishing GFA. The time loop is also inspired by the series' lack of continuity, which can be easily explained by MASH airing at a time when continuity was not considered for a long-running television series. The Korean War was a 3 year war and MASH aired over an 11 year period. Other people don't necessarily subscribe to the time "loop" theory but rather just that time itself is wonky in the MASH universe, which is why I like my dear friend @mashbrainrot 's "time trauma" tag that covers any sort of questionable references to time throughout MASH.
Because the thing is - the show starts off with a time abnormality. The second shot in the pilot has the text "KOREA, 1950 / a hundred years ago" - meaning the pilot is addressed to viewers in 2050, which is an interesting idea to consider. But does the text fit with the time loop theory? It doesn't necessarily feel like it's part of a "loop" but it's still noteworthy, considering this is how the series starts.
Throughout the show, we have one-liners about the length of time that the MASH surgeons have spent operating. Frequently they liken their time in the O.R. to an eternity or a lifetime, and if we want to take a Doylist approach to these references, it's just the MASH writers using hyperbole to stress how these surgery sessions are all the same, one after another, dragging on and on. But the time inconsistency comes up in other ways, like the episode "A War For All Seasons" - a season 9 episode which inexplicably takes place between New Years 1951 and New Years 1952. It doesn't make sense timeline-wise if you look at the other dates given throughout the series before this point, but the writers weren't thinking about previous seasons when they wrote it because that is not how episodic television worked at the time. And then you have stuff like Henry & Potter having kids/grandkids of different ages, depending on the episode. Potter has his first grandchild in s4 but in s5 "Dear Sigmund", he says he's got a granddaughter about the same age as a patient who is approximately 7. There is absolutely zero point in trying to figure out a "realistic" timeline for MASH, in the end. It was a television show made during an era where episodes couldn't be rewatched endlessly and continuity wasn't really a big deal. It was enough that characters like Henry, Trapper, Frank and Radar get referenced long after they'd left the show, but there was no "show bible" and no long-standing plan for how the series would turn out.
WHICH IS WHY it's fun to play with the idea that a time loop is at play; maybe the loop resets every time a significant character leaves the 4077th (this was someone else's idea but I can't remember who at the moment I THINK maybe Kit (@nedlittle)?) or maybe it resets when you as a viewer restart the show. Or maybe it resets in other little moments; maybe it's not one continuous loop but a series of loops throughout the series. I don't think there's one agreed-upon theory when it comes to the MASH time loop but I do encourage everyone to check out Helen's time trauma tag to see some really great posts about the concept AND share any ideas of your own about time wonkiness within the MASH universe! (ALSO there are two great videos on the timeloop concept that i will reblog following this post)
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My Thoughts On Deltarune Chapters 3 & 4
First of all - whew...what a masterpiece. Every time I think that Toby couldn't outdo himself, he goes and proves me so wrong I feel like I need to grovel...
This will contain spoilers - but I won't go into super detail, just things that I noticed/enjoyed/made me cry (thanks Toby...). I'm mainly doing this for myself to collect most of my thoughts, but maybe you guys who've finished can relate to these as well! I'll go chapter by chapter just to keep it a little organized. I'll put everything under the cut so people can scroll past it easily!
Chapter 3: Kill Your TV? More Like F-
With how chapter 2 ended with Kris creating a new dark world, I was so excited to load up the game and get right into it. Side note, I play on the switch, but does any other console/PC have the cute little dog loading screen when loading a chapter? It's the cutest thing ever ;u;
I was just minding my own business, walking around a strange stage area and then TENNA SHOWED UP and holy shit, the graphics are phenomenal! I know it takes a lot to program/design those kinds of things, and Toby has done optical illusions like that before (the Jevil fight being 2-D) but damn! The style also made me incredibly nostalgic for a game I used to play a ton as a kid - Urbz: Sims in the City (if you know, you know). I had a smile on my face for the entire rest of the chapter (besides from the very depressing beginning and ending) but Tenna stole my heart - possible competition with Papyrus??? (jk)(maybe)
Speaking of Papyrus...
WHERE IS HE TOBY???? HUH????
Ahem...anyways...
There was a brief moment where I got so lost I kept looping around the same room, the Quiz room, and it gave me a headache :( I eventually got to a room with a console...which by the way, I actually reloaded my save because I straight up thought that I was accidentally doing the weird route LMAO I didn't get S-rank for the first round, mainly because that cooking mini game kicked my ass hard the first time I did it...I'm not the best at video games...
The Tenna fight was by far one of my favorite boss battles yet - it reminded me of the Zant battle in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess when you fought Zant through the different dungeons/areas you'd done previously in a mesh-mash style. It was a pretty easy one, though.
Seeing the Knight AND fighting (or attempting to) this early was a bit surprising to me, but not an unwelcome one. I know what everyone is thinking, but I honestly think the design is meant to purposefully mislead us - I love seeing everyone's theories, but I think the Knight is either a character we have yet to meet...or one that we know but haven't seen yet (still holding out on the Papyrus is the Knight theory). After getting my ass kicked instantly, seeing Undyne made me cheer and then immediately panic because WHAT! AND THE SHELTER????? OPENING FOR KRIS????? AHHHH
Okay. I rate Chapter 3 a Tenna out of ten ;)
Chapter 4: Toby Tricks Me Into Going To Church And Liking It???
Another strong start, I loved Toriel doting on Kris like that - it was very sweet. I can tell Susie is really starting to come out of her shell more and be her true self, especially after Ralsei's speech of how they should make real friends...which oof - that hurt bad.
I didn't realize I would be jumping right into story by stopping by Noelle's house, but uh, oops? I'm sure I missed stuff in the town but I will make sure to look at it next time I play! But man, what the actual fuck was the whole sequence at Noelle's?! I was genuinely SO confused and shocked the entire time; but I really enjoyed Kris fighting us off with a hockey stick! Something to note: I am pretty sure I know what the code for the mayor is - especially since any other time the Holiday's have been involved, Christmas has been a significant motif. But it wouldn't let me enter a code :( So maybe I'm wrong.
Something I've also noticed with this part is the characterization people have of Carol, Noelle's mom and the Mayor. While yes, she is very cold and rude to Susie, but think about it this way - how would you feel if you saw a stranger messing with your missing (and possibly presumed dead) daughter's guitar? There is a very clear reason why Dess' room is left virtually untouched while the rest of the house is pristine. The thing I love most about Toby's writing is how he has such developed characters, even ones that you only see once or twice.
It was suspicious that she showed up unexpectedly after Kris had the call with the mystery person, but Asgore ALSO showed up...so who knows? I do think she has a larger role to play, but the interaction between her and Asgore kind of proves that there aren't any hard feeling between them, so now I'm not sure why Asgore is no longer on the police force...
Now, let's get onto the actual dark world.
Chapter 4 has the best soundtrack - hands down. When the choir part started? I stopped and just listened for a while; I am definitely playing the new tracks on repeat for a while. The stained glass was also gorgeous - it reminded me of the judgement hall in Undertale!
The Jack fight was a lot of fun, but it scared the hell out of me the first time I heard the 'YOUR TAKING TOO LONG'. Fun fact that I learned, you actually can take your time, he only says that once you get to a certain part of the map! I had to redo that fight a few times before I got the hang of it - it's my favorite mini boss fight.
Seeing Gerson was honestly a complete surprise - but now knowing that the dead can be in dark worlds under special circumstances....oh that could lead to some interesting implications. Which leads me to another question - if monsters in the light world can bleed, why was Kris so afraid of dust? I'm assuming 'dust' in the light world is simply being cremated, but still. We know for a fact that Susie does bleed (and so does Sans...), but maybe there are special circumstances where monsters instantly dust? Hm.
Susie opening a dark world in the same place and essentially proving the alternate world theory was fantastic - I'm still 1000% sure that the world of Undertale IS a dark world, but we will see as the game progresses. Both Susie and Ralsei had a lot of development this chapter, and it was so refreshing yet heartbreaking to see. The glass showing the prophecy really got me thinking...what possibly is the end? With the way Susie spoke and Ralsei's fear, I have a feeling it's either sacrifice of Ralsei, all three heroes, or the dark worlds are forever sealed, never to be created again. Just like before, I think it's just one of those things we have to wait and see.
Now, the titan. OH THE TITAN.
Maybe this could help other people, but after like, a million deaths, I found out a very good strategy. If you find yourself dying a lot like I did, the best strategy is to spam brighten, and DO NOT MOVE MUCH. The little shadow things will come to you regardless, so move as little as possible to prevent damage. Seriously, this saved me so much that there were turns where I took no damage at all! The fingers are a little more annoying - but manageable. I have no advice for climbing the titan, that shit sucked ;n;
The titan's design was SO BEAUTIFUL! It's been heavily implied that the save points that only WE can see (not Kris, US) would have something to do with the prophecy and such, but man, I love seeing Toby, Temmie and everyone on the team working so hard to give us such stunning visuals.
ALSO, GET DUNKED ON???!!! SHE SAID THE THING! THE THING! OH MY GOD
Chapter 4 felt so long yet so quick - I really didn't want it to end! The somber walk back to Kris' house made my heart so heavy, seeing Susie so defeated was awful...
And then, the scene with a drunk Toriel and Sans. Literally the best.
Though, I couldn't help but think how weird it was to see him so energetic, and then I remembered the idea that this is him before losing all of the people he loves...augh. The, uh, implied bits while Kris was trying to sleep was so fucking funny - though the third voice was kind of odd? Maybe I'm misremembering it, but it didn't sound like Susie's voice...I will rewatch/replay to double check.
Chapter 4 was a 100000/10 - seriously so good.
My final thoughts:
I had such a fantastic time playing these chapters - it was nice to see familiar and new characters, and Toby continues to put out bangers as always. If you are somehow reading this and haven't played these chapters/or played Deltarune at all - please, do yourself a favor and at least play the demo - it is free after all!
Thank you for anyone that listens to my rambling! I will have another post with my biggest theory as well.
#deltarune#deltarune spoilers#dr spoilers#sorry for the long ass post but I needed to get this all out#ignore any typos and grammatical errors i just kept typing lol
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I love it when time loops acknowledge the audience like it's a play like "hey you! Watching this! Are you happy now! Is this what you wanted! This!!!! You're watching this and doing nothing and you're still here watching this!" It's so good
#im going to keep maing isat posts rn its sooooooooo good time loop story of all time.#isat#time loops#in stars and time#objectively the best intentional time loop story but mash is still number one unintentional time loop story.#i need everyone to know abt the mash time loop theory its soooooo..#b.text
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since I posted that comic yesterday I’ve been learning a lot about this mash time loop thing, which is a theory that I didn’t know existed 😐
I’m so fascinated by it though, I always rationalized the sheer length of the show by figuring that, within the MASH universe, the korean war just went on for longer. Like, maybe it lasted six years instead of three. But what are y’all’s thoughts? I want to hear them!
#tell me your ideas about how they were able to shove 11 seasons with multiple cast changes into a three year war!#mash#m*a*s*h#mashposting#mashblr
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honestly the part of mash that i consider the time loop IS the syndication of it all. it’s already so screwy with time and now it must all happen over and over and over again, in its unstuck messy order or out of it, because we need it to, because it moves us every time we see it and we must keep it playing. it’s like the thing in the musical hadestown where they know they have to tell the story again, because we must keep ourselves hoping that things could turn out better, even if the story remains the same. that’s mash to me. the war goes on. which war is it anymore? we tell the story again, it all happens again, because every time it makes us laugh, cry, get angry, it keeps us connected to each other and to our humanity. or something like that wow i got maudlin as hell in your inbox excuse me. i’m normal about mash and i’m normal about cyclical forms of storytelling (lying)
Yeah I love the meta cyclical thing!!!! My thing is just that I'm a pedant and that doesn't make the narrative a time loop (though you can make a time loop out of it, plenty of fic writers do). MASH going on as long as it did had its pros and cons, but one of the pros is this sort of feeling that war is endless, that time loses its meaning.
I think what I dislike about the time loop thing is the "theory" approach. It's like "what if MASH is actually a time loop" like "what if this cartoon is actually a dream this character had while in a coma" or "what if this entire medical drama was the fantasy of an autistic child staring at a snowglobe" (iykyk). And you know, the idea that the time loop "explains" why the timeline is the way it is, or that that needs an explanation at all. It's not that deep! It is very funny.
I haven't seen or listened to Hadestown (I'm the opposite of most musical theatre fans and I rarely listen to shows I haven't seen, although there have been exceptions) and I'm not really the target audience because I don't care about Orpheus and I don't get that "maybe this time he won't do it" feeling from that particular story, but from what I've heard about how they do the ending it's really cool!! It would probably work on me if I saw it tbh.
I love cyclical storytelling! And I think a lot of people in the MASH fandom like the same things I like with regards to playing with time, I notice that when I get into actual conversations. To me the real potential is in the ability of time tropes to portray how something feels. This is why I keep coming back to Slaughterhouse-5 and the idea of being unstuck in time. What Vonnegut did was give us this war veteran who is trying to live out his life, but is frequently, against his will, transported back in time to the most traumatic experiences of his life. Sometimes he's abducted, taken to a place where he is an alien, observed and put on display for everyone. It's PTSD, but made physical by science fiction elements. It's brilliant. And MASH is so ripe to do stuff like that! You can use the funky timeline and the meta of the show lasting 11 years, being rerun again and again and shown in syndication out of order, to dig into that. And I mean I literally have a time loop WIP so.
I really enjoyed this ask <3
#none of us are normal here <3#idk if i feel that way about telling stories again and again or not#i mean my instinct is to say i don't. i like to hear the same stories again and again because they're interesting#there are new details to notice#BUT i have been thinking about human connection most lately#mashposting#also I am getting to your other one I promise
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also, said Long Lankin is a particularly pleasing bit for my brain to repeat on loop. usually followed by "🎵(you) killed him in the spring-time," Aisling said to him, because four syllables is not quite enough to actually repeat, and the next bit is nearly as excellent to repeat.
Brain switches out him and her and spring and snow pretty randomly, cause they all fit lol. The "you" is usually a note with the concept of voice behind it (not a thing that can exist in real audio, but works just fine inside my brain), because my audio processing disorder did not like that bit of the line and I had to see the lyrics to know what that word was. So it didn't get stored in the song bank, I guess.
The 'you' is an anacrusis, essentially an unstressed upbeat into the next like of a song! It kind of is meant to fade into the background, or at the very least function as a tie between one line and the next. Music theory! Or something!
And a behind-the-scenes fact is that I also had trouble remembering the order of him her spring snow while recording, even though I was writing it. I did SO many takes of that section, and I don't think I ever got them in the same order once. I kind of mashed it all back into some semblance of order in the production stage. Music mixing. Or something!
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Not a confession: HAWKEYE IS 28??? that war did something to him fr
Well it's called funny casting. I love the cast of Mash and wouldn't trade any of them for the world, but they were all significantly older than their characters.
Hawkeye and B.J. were both meant to be 28
Alan Alda was 36 at the time the show started, Mike Farrell is three years younger than him.
Father Mulcahy is 31 but William Chistopher was in his 40s when the show began.
Then the real Korean War (which has still never been declared a war on the American end) only lasted three years, and the show went on for 11 years. This is part of how we got the time loop theory.
so...yes, war is war and Hell is Hell and of the two war will age you so much faster.
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