Very surprisingly, considering what I draw alllll the time, this is my first M*A*S*H commission! This is Charles and an OC, Captain Birdie Summerfield for @metalheadfreak1! Doing commissions helps me stay sharp because they make me step out of my comfort zone, and I think this one was perfectly in between comfortable and new. I’m already so familiar with the uniforms and color palette, but it’s also a character I don’t draw often and a character I’ve never drawn before! Thank you so much for commissioning me, this was a pleasure to work on!
Commissions are open via artistree.io/staticbluue :]
So I recently finished watching M*A*S*H and while I have a lot of thoughts about it (long story short: I loved it! but boy does it have its highs and lows) there’s one idea that I had that I think could have been so so interesting. Namely, I think it would have been really cool to have a more frequent rotation of Colonels at the 4077.
As it is, we have Henry Blake for three seasons and Colonel Potter for eight. While I really like Colonel Potter, I do think that at a certain point he starts feeling a bit like a Looney Toon, and his presence sort of begins to have diminishing returns. I really like his relationships with the rest of the 4077 (especially with Margaret; I love the clear respect and fondness she has for him and how proud he is of her growth, such as when she gets divorced) and I think it’s a lot of fun to compare and contrast his and Henry Blake’s relationships with the other characters.
That being said, think of how much more fun it would be if we had more C.O.s with whom to compare them! I think maybe a new Colonel every few seasons (say, three or MAYBE four altogether) would have kept the dynamics in MASH a little fresher. I actually like that we have some character rotation in MASH as it is: eleven seasons of the exact same set of characters would probably have felt a bit stagnant.
Here’s my proposal for my DREAM third C.O. (which is unfortunately probably completely implausible): a female Colonel! Would this ever have happened? Probably not. Would it have been awesome? YES!
Imagine our male characters having to deal with the misogyny that they still carry, even though they (namely Hawkeye) do improve throughout the show. Like the episode with the Swedish female surgeon, but on a much larger scale. Imagine Margaret’s conglomerations of mixed feelings about it! I imagine she would feel a lot of respect and admiration for this woman, but maybe also a tinge of jealousy? Would she try to bond with her as another female officer or keep her distance?
I think it would interesting for this woman to be young-ish and attractive, so Hawkeye would definitely flirt with her (though not really see her as a genuine love interest…or would he? I certainly don’t propose this character AS a love interest, but it would be interesting seeing how Hawkeye would process that.) I think that like the other Colonels, perhaps she would sometimes join in on the pranks and general shenanigans, but then sometimes she would pull back. I think it would be fun for her to drop hints about her personal life (is she or has she ever been married? Everyone is dying to know) but never actually reveal much. The other characters go crazy trying to find out, but would they be so desperate to know about the love life of a male C.O.? Of course not!
Plus we could see her relationship with the nurses: maybe in their own way some of the nurses would not quite respect her as they would a male C.O., wanting to talk to her about “girly” things and come to her about personal problems. Does she feel like in a sense they are treating her more like a peer than a leader? Yes, but at the same time she is honored that they trust her. And perhaps there could be a nurse who wants to become a surgeon (like we see in one episode) and who looks up to her.
I think something like this would really stir things up at the 4077. The possibilities are limitless!
Plus, imagine Klinger asking to borrow her uniform…
Hello M*A*S*H 4077! I'm back with a commission for @metalheadfreak1 of Charles and their OC, Captain Birdie Summerfield, reuniting stateside after the war 🫂 As an enjoyer™️ of vintage fashion, it was really fun to get to mix in some civilian clothes for Birdie alongside Charles' dress uniform, and I'm so happy that you love it! Thank you, again, so much for commissioning me!
Commissions are available on my ko-fi page! Feel free to reach out.
If you would like to read a fic about Charles and Birdie, @metalheadfreak1 has one on Ao3 here!
A/N: I decided to do some post war domesticity. Hope that's alright!
Hawkeye knew when he married Liz that he wasn't getting a little housewife.
She had been honest with him from the jump. She was a passable cook, limited in her understanding of home decor and if she was going to be at the hospital for twelve hour shifts she was not going to do all the house work too.
It took negotiation and some unlearning of his own misogynistic biases, but soon enough they had their own, if unconventional, rhythm of domesticity to rival any Norman Rockwell.
He tried to keep this in mind when he walked into their tiny kitchen to find every surface covered in flour.
Liz stood at ground zero, her face dusted in white as she stared at the oven with an intensity he only saw when she was elbows deep in a man's low intestines.
"Baking something?" he asked lightly.
She spun around, the action only seeming to wind her tighter than she already was.
"I think I finally got it," she said. "I know I said that about the last few batches, but this time I really have it."
Hawkeye didn't need the reminding. While Liz swore up and down she followed every recipe she tried down to the letter, inevitably something would go wrong. There was a reason they now kept a fire extinguisher within arms reach of the oven.
Just at that moment the timer went off making her jump as she spun back around and rushed to pull the sheet out of the oven.
Hawkeye was surprise to smell sugar cookies with out a hint of smoke.
He stepped forward joining Liz as she placed them on the cooling rack. The shapes still resembled a child's drawing of trees and candy canes, complete with lopsided and scraggly lines. Still, there was no denying the lovely smell.
She offered him half of one, heat still steaming from the center.
He took it in stride. He had told her once she started experimenting with cooking, there was no use of both of them getting food poisoning. He'd been the official taste tester ever since.
So, as was befitting his station, he took a small, cautious bite.
His eyes widened.
It was good. Not too salty. Not too sweet. Just the right amount of moister. It was just good.
He looked to Liz, her expression a mixture of expectation and anxiety.
"I think we got ourselves a winner," he said, grinning.
The relief in her sigh was palpable as every muscle in her body collapsed at once.
"Oh thank God," she said. "I was really starting to think I was hopeless."
"Not hopeless," he said. "Just, you know, a little helpless."
She gave him a playful smack, making it much easier to pull her into his arms and place a kiss on top of her head.
"C'mon Betty Crocker, lets get this place cleaned up."
Rambling under cut. Cw for historical homophobia mixed in with his backstory.
This is Eldon Reed. E-4, Signal Corps. 26. He got sent out to the 4077 enough times for repairs/setting stuff up that Blake just decided to keep him, so he winds up their signal corps attachment (radar is pulling 3x his weight, he should NOT be doing all that radio/phone stuff alone. But ofc the show said historical accuracy be damned.)
He was drafted. IBEW in Virginia before the war + closeted, so between his union ties and being gay mid-lavender scare he's trying very hard to not be clocked as a potential 'security risk.'
Paranoid as all hell because of that. Takes him a while to get used to how chill the 4077 is. When he meets Hawkeye and Trapper he decides they might be spies and damage control shenanigans ensuenas they try to correct that image. That would be his episode if he were a canon character & I miiiight write it out as a fic.
He's friends with Radar first. Decent terms with Henry, hates Franks guts but doesn't rock the boat like Hawkeye and Trapper do. Once they convince him they're not suspiciously nice they wind up with this dynamic:
with Reed as the panicked one, ofc.
here's a shitty quality comic I drew of his introduction since I have no idea if I'll get around to writing the fic I have in my head or not
Here's my ATTEMPT at making him in starfield
He isn't particularly religious but he was raised to be so he hangs around Mulcahy because he at least seems familiar.
Klinger... Takes a while for him to adjust to (he's spent all this time repressing himself and here's a seemingly cishet guy getting away with crossdressing publicly) but they wind up friends eventually
Margaret and him get along later on but they don't have much reason to cross paths. She appreciates that he leaves the nurses alone... So long as she never realizes WHY he leaves the nurses alone
He joins too late to know Jones.
He winds up good friends with Col. Potter eventually. BJ as well, though not as close.
I like ginger so I want him and ginger to be friends but I can't decide how that would actually happen. This is all still wip
Personality wise he's very dry. More because he's constantly on alert about his own tells and kinda shuts everything down because of that. He makes a lot of jokes but they're very blunt and he makes absolutely no effort to make sure other people can tell he's joking so it takes a minute for people to realize he isn't just stuffy. 'married to his work' but it's rly just. the time. Before/after the Army he's not nearly so guarded, though he is still naturally reserved. He's very passionate about his union but also very aware how quickly being loud about that could get him labeled as a communist sympathizer so once he's drafted he sort of puts himself on autopilot until he can get out. He relaxes a bit after a few months at the 4077.
Everyone say hi to grumpy gay panic personified :)
Radar is such an important member of the mash cast. It's important representation for autistic teenagers who are best friends with their middle aged coworkers.
helloooooooo! school and work have been kicking my ass lately, but i've got about 3 weeks left, so we're almost done!!
thank you to the lovely @gilgamish @skyrim-forever @saltymaplesyrup @dirty-bosmer for the tags this week!!!!
i'm tagging @umbracirrus @moriche @sulphuricgrin @da3drat @oblivions-dawn and YOU! seriously, if you see this, please @ me as someone who tagged you, i wanna see everyone's wips! <3
this week, i don't have any writing, but i do have some art wips, one of which is M*A*S*H related!!!!
one of my thalmor justiciars, syranel! i know i posted the early stages of his portrait for another wip wednesday, so this is the progress on that!
some assorted skyrim ocs, 3 of whom have already appeared in CotS!
T-B, L-R: Phoebe, scribe of the Blue Palace; Corinne, instructor and interpreter at the Bard's College; Caryion, Thalmor Justiciar; Eraneth, Aldmeri Dominion embassy clerk
aaaaaand a brand new and current wip of my M*A*S*H oc, joan sawyer mitchell!
these are just meant to be fun little studies while i get his features down. they're a nurse at the 4077, and he's... a disaster, tbh <3 my little scrunkly.
