#mash and buffy

[acesammy]

if I had a nickel for every time donald sutherland was in a movie that was later adapted into a tv show that was so much better liked it all but made the movie obsolete, I'd have 2 nickels. Which isnt a lot but it's weird that it happened twice

[episodeoftv]

Round 5 of 8

propaganda and summaries are under the cut (May include spoilers)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 5.16 The Body

tw Death of a major character, grief, dealing with the death of a parent

Buffy, Dawn, and their friends deal with the aftermath of Joyce's death.

The purposeful removal of music for the whole episode, the grief portrayed, the portrayals of people with varying amounts of interaction with death. It hits so hard.

This episode killed me. I have never watched anything that has fully encompassed the feeling of loss and what it's like to experience death close to you than The Body. It is an absolute gut punch in the best way. I actually had to take a week off of watching Buffy to recover because I was so destroyed. 12/10 I don't think I will ever be able to watch this episode of TV ever again

One of the greatest depictions of grief and bereavement of all time. Both formally inventive and unique in its cinematography, sound design, editing etc. while also being an incredible personally affecting emotional experience.

There’s another buffy episode that probably deserves the title more, but I did have to give this one some recognition. For a whacky silly show about vampires, this episode is maybe the realest portrayal of death and grief I’ve ever seen. It’s not just a sad episode that makes audiences cry - I mean it is that - but it’s also this incredible examination of what it’s like to lose someone, and how the world shifts on its axis when that happens. The lack of any non diegetic music is an amazing touch to give this episode a sense of distance from all others. It’s real in a way that’s hard to watch but also unforgettable. Certain scenes and lines will always stay with me and will forever shape my feelings on life and loss.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Body_(Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer)

M*A*S*H: 11.16 Goodbye, Farewell and Amen

In the closing days of the Korean War, the staff of the 4077 M*A*S*H Unit find themselves facing irrevocable changes in their lives.

LITERALLY the most episode ever. For American television broadcasts it remains the most-watched primetime television episode ever, beaten only by a number of Super Bowls, the moon landing, and the Nixon resignation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye,_Farewell_and_Amen

[theprotagonistisdead]

yeah it's actually incredible what kind of men I generally get gender envy from... kaz (my literal namesake), hawkeye, spike...just absolute losers

[girl-of-ink]

Did you explain the connection yet? I only know spike and castiel, but I recognize where the others are from. Are they all like double agents??

ok so for reference, this is the post we're talking about

the characters are as follows: maxwell q. klinger from m*a*s*h, spike from buffy: the vampire slayer, seto kaiba from yugioh, and castiel supernatural

the connection is this: none of these characters were supposed to last longer than a few episodes or chapters in their source material, but each of them ended up being main characters who made it all the way to the very end of their respective series & became overall fan favorites

klinger isn't original to the book or movie that m*a*s*h is based on, and he was intended to be one-off transphobic crossdressing joke. instead, he was so well-written and well-acted that he became a main character whose passion for women's fashion was respected and admired by all the other characters. unlike the later examples, the writers of the show voluntarily kept klinger on and really embraced the journey of writing him into a deep and sympathetic character. despite having been written for one single off color joke in one single episode, he starred in all eleven seasons and is one of the most beloved characters in the whole show

Seto Kaiba was originally written as a one-off bad guy of the week, a classmate of yugi's who has a passion for card games but no respect for other players. he was such a hit that takahashi just kept upgrading him to be a Bigger and Badder bad guy (he opens a theme park to murder the protagonists) until he eventually became So Popular that he was (sort of) redeemed and upgraded to antihero protagonist. the anime adaptation took this even farther by highlighting him and frequently shoehorning him into arcs he wasn't really present for in the manga. he is now the most popular character in the whole show, even more than any of the original protagonists

Spike was introduced in Season 2 of Buffy as a short-term bad guy meant to highlight Angel's status as the 'good vampire.' instead, he became wildly popular and was slowly upgraded to main character and endgame love interest. joss whedon, notably, hated the fact that spike was a fan favorite and continuously attempted (and failed) to sabotage spike's popularity with viewers. instead, he remains one of the most iconic figures of the series, even despite the attempted character assassination

castiel is the perfect evolution of each of the previous characters. he was originally signed for a handful of episodes in season 4 of supernatural, but his impact was so great (and his sexual tension w/ dean was so powerful) that he immediately shot to the top of all popularity polls. quite a few supernatural writers, like joss whedon, hated that the gay angel had taken over their show, and he was almost killed and written off the show multiple times, but the fan outcry was so loud that they kept caving and writing him back in. by the end of the show, he remained a main character after 11 seasons, and the writers made the funniest possible choice of 1) caving to fan desires and making him canonically gay and then 2) indulging their own utter hatred by killing him immediately afterward and spending the last episode of the show acting as if he had never existed.

each of these characters was meant to be a one-off character meant to either be a joke or a means to advance the plot. each of them was so unbelievably charismatic and charming that they became main characters due to their extreme popularity with fans. for klinger and kaiba, the creators embraced their wildcard protagonists and allowed them to blossom naturally into nuanced and interesting characters. for spike and castiel, the creators threw countless conniption fits but could not quash the public's fervor for an asshole vampire and a gay angel. i find comparing the four of them really interesting, as it shows the way that fan interaction can shape a narrative, and it gives us an insight into the way characters and stories can take on a life of their own and eventually result in one gay angel ruling the entire internet against the will of the people who created him

[quordleona03]

Fic Writer 2023 Review

I got this from @jaelijn, who generously tagged me - 30 questions about my fic writing through this year.

I hope for a better 2024 for all of us.

What’s something new that you tried in a fic this year? How did it turn out and would you do it again?

I wrote the first three chapters - well, I can hardly say "wrote" - of a fandom fusion - Blake's 7 scripts with MAS*H characters replacing them. To find them funny - even to know what's going on - you would have to be simultaneously a B7 fan and a MASH fan. Judging by the response on AO3, I would say there are about four such. Maybe less. I probably won't finish it - though anything's possible - and I doubt very much if I'll do anything like that again. The problem was that it was not very creative, but even so, it took up a fair amongt of time.

2. How many fics did you work on this year? (They don’t have to be finished or published!)

I wrote about 211,000 words of All We Know - pretty steadily through the year. I was writing the September 1962 section last January, and I'm writing the April 1963 section now. I'm publishing chronologically, so the section I'm working on now will be posted in April 2024 - after being proofread, edited, beta-read, edited, and so on.

I also completed three MASH stories - Crabapple Cove, Major Heart, Under the Apple Tree, and one Star Trek story, Kirk and Spock's First Kiss. M*A*S*H works in progress include Rosary, Nurse Doctor, MirrorMASH, and another strange crossover, Buffy the Vampire Slayer And Her Gay Foster Dads.

And there's Gray-Eyes, which is something else again.

3. What’s something you learned about yourself as a writer?

All We Know is easily the longest story I've ever written. I found that I can hold a story that length inside of my head and my heart, and keep writing it - and be confident I'll finish it. I found, too, that I do a lot of my writing inside my head before I sit down and stare at the screen. This last I always knew, I suppose, but now I really know it.

4. What piece of media inspired you the most?

Well, M*A*S*H, of course. Some lovely soul managed to upload All The MASH Episodes to the Internet Archive in such a way that they went unnoticed for over a year. (They are now gone- helpful people on the very public Mash subreddit started posting links to them, and whaddya know, once declared publicly, they're gone.)

I also watched some few episodes of E.R., most of the first episode of AfterMASH, a couple of episodes of Trapper John M.D., a specific episode of Sports Night, and I read Herman Wouk's Marjorie Morningstar and Kathy Hulme's The Nun's Story, among other relevant material.

5. What fandom(s) did you write for this year?

M*A*S*H. Star Trek. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Blake's 7, a little.

6. What ship(s) captured your heart?

Hawkeye/Mulcahy. Over, and over, and over again. Also, because they're so very sweet together, Sam Pak/Sidney Freedman.

7. What character(s) captured your heart?

Well, besides Francis Mulcahy and Hawkeye Pierce, 2023 was the year I got to like Trapper very much indeed, as I wrote him in October and in December. I saw a very old fanvid, Trapper Never Got To Say Goodbye, and watched a bunch of good Trapper episodes, and - I just got to like him. I also invented/discovered in my heart several newly adorable people: Sam Colquhoun and his daughter Barbara, Martine LeClerc, Pauline Morley and her partner Thea Schwartz and their friend Nadine Royer, Loretta Bradford, Doctor Jerome White and Doctor Aaron Elharar, Sarah Pargeter Pierce and her 12-year-old daughter Mary, Sister Maria Angelica and Sister Raymond, and of course Cathryn Jamieson.

8. Did you write for a new fandom or ship this year?

No. Well, yes: I gave Margaret Houlihan the best possible husband I could imagine for her. I like Sam Colquhoun.

9. What fic meant the most to you to write?

At the time? Gray-Eyes. Ongoing through the whole year: All We Know.

10. What fic made you feel the happiest to work on?

Crabapple Cove. I got the idea and wrote it and giggled most of my way through writing it.

11. What fic was the most satisfying to finish writing?

Well, besides Gray-Eyes, I only finished four stories this year, plus some bits of tumblrfic: Crabapple Cove, Major Heart, Under the Apple Tree, and Kirk and Spock's First Kiss. They were all very satisfying to finish.

12. What fic was the most difficult to write? Did you finish it?

MirrorMASH. I have got to a point in that story where I know how it ends, and yet I am really struggling to write that ending - because when it's done, I shall never write MirrorHawkeye again.

But there was an idea for a story I thought of - "AfterMASH, only like the Golden Girls, Max and Charles and Francis sharing a house…" - and Honoria of course - and I wrote the opener for it, and then realised that I didn't see a way to write any more of it. I could see it in my mind's eye as an endlessly enjoyable TV series - but to write another word of it felt like climbing up the Cliffs of Insanity with Fezzik on my back and Inigo on his shoulders. It was like contemplating a land war in Asia. I just gave up.

13. What fic was the easiest to write?

Kirk and Spock's First Kiss. I wrote it at a writer's workshop at an online K/S con, and the story just unpacked itself into dialogue.

14. What were your shortest and longest fics this year?

Kirk and Spock's First Kiss is the shortest - a perfect drabble of 100 words. All We Know is the longest - 261,000 words in the current document, 143,314 words published on AO3.

15. Rec a fic you wrote or posted in 2023

I'm very pleased with M*A*S*H goes to Pride - thinking through what each of our surviving friends from MASH 4077th would do at the world's first Pride March in New York City in 1970, and whether I think they are LGBT or ally or neither.

16. What were you go-to writing songs?

I was writing the first draft of Christmas in Maine (just posted on Christmas Day) in the middle of a really, really hot August (for Scotland), and I played a list of Christmas carols over and over. I was then writing a chapter from Sister Maria Angelica's point of view and I made a playlist of Christian religious music. Otherwise, usually Leonard Cohen, Janis Ian, Willie Nelson, Tracy Chapman, Johnny Cash, k. d. lang, and so on.

17. What were your go-to writing snacks?

Cashew nuts.

18. What was the hardest fic to title?

Well - All We Know. I'd been calling it "Virtues and Sins" til May, til I realised that if I was going to post the opening chapter in two months time, I really, really had to think of a proper title.

19. Share your favorite opening line

""What do you pray for?" Hawkeye asks: not every time, but often. And when he doesn't ask, he looks: he stares at Mulcahy's rosary sometimes as if he hated it."

20. Share your favorite ending line

"First and foremost: Francis J. P. Mulcahy, formerly chaplain 4077th MASH: without you, this book would not have been written, and without you, I would not have been here to tell it."

21. Share your favorite piece of dialogue

"Doctor Pierce - debauched him?" "It does seem unlikely, doesn't it?" Charles said. "But then whatever else Pierce lacked, it was not persistence or audacity. Good God, did he know the Irishman could write like this? How?"

22. Share an excerpt from your favorite scene

After a moment, Mulcahy laughed. He sounded more tired than amused. "All right," he said. "Should I move this chair?" He got up. Hawkeye caught him by the arm as he was about the pick up his own chair. "Let me." he said. "I know just where it has to be." He moved the chair around, where the light from the central lamp would be falling at the right angle on Mulcahy's head, and waved Mulcahy to sit down again. All Hawkeye had time for, that morning, was to check that there was no indication of a concussion, and no broken bones. He meant to give Mulcahy a haircut, but he wanted to check his scalp for cuts or bruises. "And what can I do for you, sir? Pompadour, bouffant, some stylish Victory rolls?" Hawkeye was gently combing Mulcahy's hair out with his fingers. "Perhaps a little scalp massage?"

23. Share the final version of a sentence or paragraph you struggled with. What about it was challenging? Are you happy with how it turned out?

Winchester folded his hands in front of him. He looked calmer. He also looked pompous, and embarrassed. "It appears I owe you an apology." "Thank you," Mulcahy said, after a moment's effort. "I didn't intend to say anything to upset you. I'm sorry. Is Hawkeye all right?"

It may not look very difficult, but the whole passage of Charles Emerson Winchester and Francis Mulcahy talking in Charles's study in December (in All We Know) was hugely difficult and very painful to rewrite and rewrite and rewrite. I was so hugely on Francis's side that I was having difficulty seeing Charles's side. I am very happy with how it eventually turned out. Jakrar is a wonderful person to work through a story with.

24. What’s something that surprised you while you were working on a fic? Did it change the story?

While writing the final September section of All We Know, back in February, I realised something about Charles Emerson Winchester's son, Charles Emerson Winchester Jr, that I genuinely had not realised previously, and while it didn't change the story much, it did affect it. (Our Charles's father and grandfather are dead at the time All We Know opens, so CEW III has lost his ordinal number and his son CEW is Junior.)

25. What did you use to write? (e.g. writing programs, paper & pen, etc.)

I use LibreOffice on a Windows 10 desktop. I can and do write on my laptop if I have to, but my favourite place to write is at my desk in the little room with the window that looks out only on the sky, facing the wall. I take notes on Notepad.

26. If you had to choose one, what was THE most satisfying writing moment of your year?

"Please don't worry," Mulcahy said. "We can find our own way out."

(You will find out why, next year.)

27. Did you do anything special to celebrate finishing a fic?

No.

28. How did you recharge between fics?

What is this "between fics" you speak of?

29. If this were an awards show, who would you thank?

I would thank my demonic proofreader Jakrar, who is enabling me to keep writing this story in the best demonic style, Ajay, who has been my closest fannish friend for getting on for forty years, and @rescue-ram whose fabulous pro-Trapper comments (and fic) make me very, very happy. Also, for ideas presented to me in 2022 and 2023 that I stole without conscience and used ruthlessly in my own words in 2023: FaustianSlip for Not A Second Time, @allcanonisrelative for Every time, I think of you, @yeats-infection for What the Thunder Said, and also Crystalrose and @topshelf2112-blog for their very different but quite illuminating takes on Charles Emerson Winchester in particular and his relationship with Hawkeye Pierce, which was not something I'd thought much about before I started planning All We Know.

30. What’s something that you want to write in 2024?

I want to finish All We Know and Rosary and Nurse Doctor and MirrorMASH and I would quite like to write a few more episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's gay foster dads. And I look forward to getting more ideas for something new.

Posted at 31:12:23:23:12:31.

[nerdfromthenet]

I’ve been bingeing Buffy these past few months and it’s safe to say I have a new bbygirl. 🤭

(This was a commission I got from @incubita on Twitter!! )

[rdng1230]

Roller Derby Name Needed

Ok I just went to my first roller derby training and I'm gonna need a proper roller derby name. My name is Riley, I like sewing, Buffy, MASH, West Wing, and OFMD, among other shows. I have one name that I picked out at like age 8 that I love but I want some more options, any ideas appreciated!!

[saintfaulkners]

guys I have too many things I want to watch rn and I can't decide. help me

[three-seperate-johns]

Eight shows to get to know you :) I was tagged by @thetideseternaltune

I’ve taken the ‘getting to know me’ part to heart - I don’t even follow tags for all these shows on tumblr. They are not necessarily my favourite right now, nor are they the shows I write/read fanfic for.

In no particular order:

Numb3rs - I grew up without a tv, so numb3rs was the first show I really picked out for myself, and I started watching it when I was ~15. It’s the only show I’ve ever gone out and bought every season of for myself. It’s just a really solid monster of the week detective show, with subtle and charming characters who are not too closely involved in the plots they investigate. Which is exactly my jam. One of my friends watched Numb3rs and chatted with me briefly about it, but I’ve otherwise never fangirled over it with anyone. Even though I still count it as one of my favourite shows of all time 15 years down the track. I’ve actually never read fanfic for Numb3rs, and I know next to nothing about the making of. I wouldn’t recognise the names of the actors or any of the showrunners, which is actually my ideal media consumption experience xD 

Buffy - First show I ever watched while surrounded by people who are obsessed with the show, and I had an excellent time with it. It was interesting because all my friends were teenagers when they watched it for the first time, but I was in my early twenties, and it was really interesting to see where my experiences of the show diverged from theirs. I don’t usually read Buffy fanfic, and some of my Buffy opinions are pretty controversial :P I think seasons 4-6 are the best, and I love Riley which seems to really bother some of my friends xD

Fallet - This show is a fucking fever dream. It took me a whole episode to work out that it was a comedy, it had some real ‘Douglas Adams’ vibes at the end, which was fun. It’s a murder mystery set in sweden that uses a mix of swedish and english, and it is best described as ‘kooky.’ My only IRL friend who watched it (after much nagging) did so while slightly feverish with covid. They seemed to have a good time, but I would not recommend doing this xD It’s wild enough without the delirium.

Vera - the quintessential ‘slow moving, episodic, british murder mystery.’ Vera is awesome (especially in the early seasons) for just being really fucking good. My favourite thing about this show is the leading lady - Vera is a grumpy, frumpy, middle aged woman without a maternal bone in her body. I am so sick of women needing to be kind and selfless to be a protagonist.

VGHS - now for something completely different! It’s a show made by a youtube special effects guy about a high school where you learn to play videogames. And it made me cry. A death notification set to an in-universe laugh track? Sign me up! It’s mostly super goofy, and the main character is way less interesting than all his friends, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. Probably the closest thing to a pure comedy I will watch, but it makes it oddly poignant moments all the sweeter. Also, 10/10 ending. I don’t read fanfic of it either, and these days I’m waaay too old for the characters personally. I definitely had a bit of a thing for the main character’s gf tho. Ngl.

Shetland - I do this thing where I avoid looking at fan content for a show if I’m enjoying it on its own merits, because I want to experience it without the brain rot. Kinda weird, but it works for me. Shetland is funny because I could immediately see a pairing I wanted to explore, but I waited years for the show to go downhill before I let myself open ao3. Luckily, I think they caught up with the books, and changed hands around season 4ish, because the quality nosedived and I have read and written so many things for Jimmy/Duncan, and do not intend to stop xD I actually haven’t had the heart to watch the latest season, because I don’t think I’ll enjoy it all that much. Cool theme song though! And everyone should watch the early short seasons.

Capitani - I hate the hays code. And not just because of the moralising and the homophobia - it makes storytelling predictable. The impact it continues to have on all english speaking media is never more obvious than when you watch something from another part of the world and are completely blindsided by the emotional arc. Capitani fucking killed me. I’ve read that Capitani is Luxembourg’s only globally successful media product. I don’t know if that’s true, but I wasn’t sure if Luxembourg was a country or a city before I watched it, so it’s probably not far from the truth. I now have a fun little rap song in Luxembourgish on my spotify playlist! It won my heart forever when they set up a joke and completed it four episodes later without any call backs. Imagine having that much faith in your audience! I would read the shit out of fanfiction of the fucked up love story between Capitani and Karla, but unfortunately, there is none :(

MASH - My ex step father owned every season of MASH on DVD, and when I was 14 my friend and I would rush to my house to watch them while having sit-up competitions. I don’t know why this was a fun activity for two 14 year old girls, but I have so many fond memories of this time. It was the first tv show I ever watched sequentially, and the first show I ever watched start to finish. It was also the reason I beat all the boys in my class when we had to do those fitness tests in PE! xD I’m personally a bigger fan of the show post-season 3 when they had the big tone shift. While there are definitely funny scenes, the image in my head when someone mentions MASH is always Charles smashing up his record player. So while it’s famous as a comedy, that’s not really how I remember it. I keep meaning to go look up the show on ao3, because I am sooo curious about what the common pairings are, and what kind of tone the fics take.

I had a lot of fun with this :) Thanks for tagging me! I’m way too shy to tag eight people, but would love to hear about the viewing past of: @republicofgaypirates @galadriel1010 @leliesblou @scullyverse @justplainsalty

[homoeroticvillain]

actually since i was name posting, i think everyone should know i decided my middle name is spike ages ago. cause one of my middle names was already a buffy character like legally and the other started with s. and spike is just a sick ass middle name lets be real

[youngpettyqueen]

🙅‍♀️👻 for the ask game!

🙅‍♀️ "What is one trope you refuse to ever write?"

idk what the actual name of this trope would be or if it would be considered a trope but different setting AUs? like coffeeshop AUs, fantasy AUs, that sort of thing. AUs that completely remove characters from their original context and put them somewhere else. I have nothing against them! theyre just not my thing really, I dont seek them out to read and I really wouldnt write them

this doesnt include like, "what if X happened" AUs and AUs that could feasibly exist in canon. ive written a couple of those before, would be open to writing them again

👻 "Have you written holiday-themed fics? If yes, which is your fave? If not, what’s one holiday you’d want to write for, and which character(s) would the fic be for?"

I have not but ive been attempting to write holiday fics for fandoms for like. a decade. im not even kidding. the timing just never works out around the holidays for me to have the time/energy/muse to write em! ive tried doing it across multiple fandoms and for whatever reason it just hasn't happened

I really wanna write a few MASH holiday fics. a spooky silly one for Halloween involving everyone, a sweet Valentine's Day one between BJ and Margaret specifically, and a really sweet little Christmas fic. theyre really vague idea in my head atm so we'll see if they happen! who knows, certainly not me

[problematicsubmarine]

Mostly everything people love about Friefly was ripped from Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, or Outlaw Star or were already staple Scifi and Western tropes.

[muirmarie]

going thru my mash tag and causing myself massive emotional distress, as one does!

[theloopus]

Get to know you game! Answer the questions and tag 9 people you want to know better.

tagged by @livepoultryfreshkilled hiiiii<3 i've never been tagged in one of these! or i have but then i forgor to do it. alas

Last song listened to: not counting background music and soundtracks from watching tv or youtube i believe i was listening to The Communists Have the Music by They Might Be Giants a few days ago? just because the sick ass music video popped up on my youtube tab and i was wasting time. yes i can go days without willingly listening to music sorry to the musicheads everywhere

Currently reading: still Las Malas by Camila Sosa Villada. yes it's been months and i am still trying to get through this really short and easy read. it's an unbelievably good book though if you speak spanish you should read it. rough and raw semi-autobiographical travesti magical realism

Currently watching: actively i've been binging GLOW i have like two episodes left i got really hooked! it's such a good show i'm already so fucking pissed it got cancelled and i haven't even gotten to the cliffhanger yet. but the more i learn about this cancellation the more pissed i get. also very funny that whenever i watch a tv show about women doing sports i'm like "omg i should do that" my friend said it's like sports anime to me and she's so right. other than that i'm still getting through Laverne & Shirley (S5), The X-Files (S4), Columbo (S8), and i've been watching a bit of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (S1) with my little sister!

Currently obsessed with: i am in such a slump lately i'm not gonna lie to you. am i obsessed with anything rn? up until one or two weeks ago it was Starsky & Hutch occupying my every waking thought but i've calmed down about them i think rn. uhh. of course Quantum Leap and MASH always on the mind. well i've been trying to grow some plants (Hutch core) but they all keep dying except for my loyal pothus (Starsky core).

augh tagging 9 people this part is always the worst i feel like i'm annoying and also inevitably leaving out people. FEEL FREE TO IGNORE noooo pressure but beloved friends and mutuals @alukardtheabysswalker (birthday guy!!!) @kittymoding @archerism @theboost @just-a-fucked-up-kid @argentinosaurus @pomegranate @opqrstuv04 @dykebeckett @simpmasterv2 + bonus @aheathenconceivably what are you guys up to lately! ily