#ship hb

[marley-manson]

Fraser/RayV, RayK/RayV, and BJ/Hawkeye for the ship it or not ask game <3

Thank you! <3

Fraser/Ray V

Ship It

What made you ship it?

They had me at, "I only asked you for it once, and you got it for me." And that was the first five minutes of the show I ever watched lol.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

I love love love how ride or die for Fraser Ray is, and that Fraser taking Ray for granted starts as just a funny gag (eg Ray handing him his wallet and saying 'just give me an allowance') but, like most of the comedy in the first half of season 1, becomes a point of contention to address more seriously in episodes like Vault. But I also love that while it's picked up as a theme here and there, it's never fully resolved, leaving fanfic writers an excellent route to write satisfying fic. One moment where Fraser puts Ray above everything else is all I want. (I mean we kinda got that in Call of the Wild, bizarrely enough, but it was never followed through on >:( )

But also: I love the banter, I love the contrast between Ray complaining about Fraser constantly when it comes to petty stuff and then supporting him wholeheartedly with a smile when it comes to the big stuff, I love that Fraser inspires Ray to be better and care more about random strangers, I love that Fraser has a ton of faith in Ray, I love that Ray looks out for Fraser, I love when Fraser looks out for Ray, I love how much they trust each other, I love the episodes where they're at odds, I love that Fraser thought he was going insane when Ray disappeared... it's all just so good.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Idk I've always vibed with Fraser/Ray V shippers for the most part. There are things here and there I disagree with people/fics on, but idk if there are any big popular opinions I disagree with among the Fraser/Ray V fans. Even stuff that seems like it should be my own niche opinion - eg my take that the way Ray prioritizes Fraser above everything would expand to his sexuality and he'd barely even have a crisis over it because it's Fraser, even if he'd previously thought he was straight - is surprisingly prevalent in fic.

Ray K/Ray V

Ship It

What made you ship it?

The fact that it's a ship featuring Ray Vecchio lmao, there's very little I wouldn't read for him. But it's a solid ship as long as I feel like Ray V is in character, and I do enjoy the 'dudes on the rebound from Fraser' vibe.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

I enjoy the initial tension and resentment, the rivals to lovers vibe. I like people exploring why and how they'd get along in the absence of Fraser, especially since they're so incompatible on a surface level. I like the two of them kind of being messy and fucked up individually and not really fixing each other but yk finding a little happiness together. They feel very down to earth in comparison to either Fraser ship, as the two humans to Fraser's saint, which is interesting and fun when it's emphasized.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Noooot really I think? I have some dealbreakers (like eg if Ray V isn't straight, it's impossible for me to believe he wasn't in love with Fraser so don't try to tell me those feelings were platonic lol, and I can't envision Ray V being casual about a physical fight happening within a sexual relationship) but none of them are like super common.

BJ/Hawkeye

Ship It

What made you ship it?

The scene in The Grim Reaper, a season 6 episode which, for convoluted reasons, was one of the last ones I actually watched lol, in which BJ casually ignores Hawkeye's impending court martial and dismisses his upset ranting about it while sipping a martini and telling him he's screwed, and then getting more upset about a jacket he thinks Charles stole.

Yeah probably a weird moment to cite as the moment when I finally went 'aha! I see it now!' but I fucking love dysfunctionality. It was an amount of condescending emotional detachment from BJ that felt absolutely buck wild as a shift from their seasons 4+5 relationship and had me sitting up and taking note and instantly imagining how their whirlwind wartime affair would go. Yeah I'd already watched seasons 7-11 but I think seeing this as a contrast to the earlier BJ eps really made it stand out as fascinating.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

The dysfunctionality! Disparate amounts of emotional investment/detachment, BJ dismissing Hawkeye's campaigns regularly, BJ negging Hawkeye and condescending to him about his emotionality and deliberately making him spiral to (imo) feel better about himself and how "well adjusted" he is in comparison, Hawkeye calling BJ his best friend he loves the most etc but going to Margaret for emotional support or Mulcahy to talk and get advice on how to deal with feelings, BJ's insecurity in his own masculinity in comparison with Hawkeye's proud effete vibes, BJ emotionally cheating on Peg with Hawkeye, Hawkeye lowkey knowing this but not looking directly at it, BJ literally cheating on Peg with Hawkeye and Hawkeye selfishly rolling with it because he wants to have sex with BJ and tells himself BJ is a big boy who can make his own decisions but has unpleasant feelings about it for multiple reasons, Hawkeye unabashedly being the dominant personality of the friendship and expecting BJ to follow his lead (to the point of pointed disapproval when he doesn't by default in a few earlier episodes imo) to BJ's eventual resentment, BJ's inability to support Hawkeye in GFA (he's the ideal terrible comforter in a h/c fic tailored to my own tastes honestly)...

A lot of this is obviously my own reading of their relationship, not necessarily intended, but man it's all so fascinating to me.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Every single one of my opinions on the ship lol. I love the dysfunctionality! I don't want them to live happily ever after! They should have a five year post-canon relationship that uproots their lives, ends in an acrimonious bitterly resentful divorce, and makes them both worse people. Or they should fuck during canon and have a messy falling out and then fuck again because they're stupid and stuck together and fucked up from the war, and then never see each other after GFA.

Hawkeye should, under no circumstances, sadly pine for him and fail to move on for years post-GFA until BJ swoops back into his life to whisk him away to California and be his knight in shining armour.

If we must go the happily ever after route, it should at least be Hawkeye saving BJ from his misery and repression and trauma and failing marriage etc, since BJ has demonstrated zero ability to emotionally support Hawkeye while that's what Hawkeye does in every BJ centric episode of the show, and Hawkeye has a much greater capacity to recover from the war due to being emotionally open and willing to introspect and talk about his feelings and identify his own flaws and go to therapy.

send ships

[marley-manson]

the best thing about beejhawk is that BJ thinks he's the secure rational supportive one, but he's actually the emotional mess who distances himself and needs to be emotionally supported and coaxed into admitting how he feels by the emotionally intelligent, open, and secure half of the relationship, Hawkeye, who only seems like an emotional mess because he actually talks about and acts on his feelings rather than hiding them and pretending to be calm and rational

[marley-manson]

Hawkeye dgaf about BJ's marriage except inasmuch as it makes BJ happy. He has no personal investment in it. In Hanky Panky he thought the idea of BJ fucking Donovan was funny and worth nothing more than lighthearted teasing until BJ turned out to be genuinely upset about it. He's happily friends with many cheaters and willing to fuck married people himself (except when he wants to marry them himself, ie Radar's Report).

When BJ demonstrates that 85% of his character is 'married' Hawkeye backs that marriage up 100% for his sake, but imo if BJ wanted to get a divorce, Hawkeye would back that decision up too, easily. If BJ wanted to fuck him, the only reason Hawkeye might not be down is because BJ could react badly and it could ruin their friendship and he's got a practical side to him, not because he genuinely cares about the sanctity of BJ's marriage.

And I think this is in keeping with other Hawkeye characterization where he tends to prioritize what other people value when it's relevant to making them feel better and supporting them. He's an agnostic but he validates Mulcahy's religious beliefs when he needs validation, he'll tell Radar either that it's awesome to not fuck or that he should go out and get laid depending on what Radar's upset about in any given episode, he cares about his patients a lot and wouldn't even defend himself when one attacked him but he's extremely cool about Mulcahy straight up punching a patient, etc.

Which, yk, is basic supportive character characterization, but he's got it more than other Mash characters imo, and I like it, and it makes a lot more sense to me than Hawkeye being a marriage cheerleader because he thinks marriage is awesome (he generally seems negative to on the slightly positive side of neutral at best on the concept) or because he's scared of BJ choosing him instead and sublimates that into marriage cheerleading. After all, this is the guy who seizes every romance dangled in front of him with both hands even if it is obviously doomed, and isn't repressed about anything to the point where the writers need to rely on actual traumatic amnesia to prevent him from discussing his problems immediately.

[marley-manson]

like here, I put Rally Round the Flagg back on to finish it and Hawkeye's first words in this scene where he wants to apologize to the patient and BJ won't let him see him is "How's that patient I almost put in the hospital?" ie a contrite (the exaggeration) and self-aware acknowledgement that he overreacted in the OR. BJ still (quite smugly) bars him and puts all the blame on him rather than any on the patient with his remark about their respective thermostats.

The episode is solidly on Hawk's side here because when BJ talks to the patient himself ~calmly and reasonably~ he gets accused of being a communist too, and then the patient attacks Hawkeye at the end of the episode, and BJ is ironically the one who nearly puts him in the hospital, literally this time.

Hawkeye overreacted but the patient is a jingoistic asshole and BJ not acknowledging that so he can feel superior to Hawkeye in his own calm attitude is very interesting imo.

Like I've gone into BJ's superficial emotional detachment and how he prides himself on it before so I don't need to write a big post about how it's a recurring thing throughout the later seasons, but I love how he deliberately contrasts himself to Hawkeye that way and like, kind of revels in Hawkeye's big shows of emotion because they make him feel good about himself for not being like that (until he blows up worse.)

[marley-manson]

i think a fun potential conflict in post-war beejhawk fic (i mean fun for me, so yk, toxic and miserable and hard to fix without a lot of character development, fair warning) is BJ's canonical need to materially support his partner and have her rely on him (eg mail call 3, no sweat, wheelers and dealers) vs Hawkeye being a surgeon.

even better if they get together while Hawkeye's still in fucked up trauma mode and only doing small town family doctoring or maybe not even that, and then eventually decides he's ready to get back into surgery and BJ has a weird internal crisis about no longer being the provider, and gets resentful and paggro. or more insidiously, questions whether Hawkeye is really ready to get back into it, can he handle the pressure and the hours and the lives in his hands again, he's only looking out for Hawkeye's mental health of course - and maybe he really believes that himself.

and you might say that if he's grown enough to admit he's gay and be in a relationship with a man he'll have grown past this heteronormative dynamic, but a) that's boring i'm here for weird angst and toxic 1950s masculinity and coming out doesn't automatically fix every issue you have anyway and b) he also does canonically have a need to one up hawkeye specifically, sometimes directly in terms of masculinity, sometimes framing his own emotional detachment as superior and mocking Hawkeye's emotion-driven campaigns (eg Back Pay, Depressing News, Give Em Hell Hawkeye), and sometimes random stuff like pranks or calling him insecure.

so I think it could really fit for BJ to relish their dynamic while Hawkeye's off work and recovering and relying on him, and feel like the rug's been pulled out from under him when that changes.

[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.

[marley-manson]

Hawkeye is being overdramatic when he says 'would you hold me and let me die in your arms or would you let me lie there and bleed' (probably in part because he's still coming down from a manic episode and has been extra intense this episode, and in part because he's Hawkeye and Hawkeye is often overdramatic), but BJ's overly literal response is bizarre because he's either willfully ignoring what Hawkeye's saying and refusing to engage with his actual point, thereby proving Hawkeye's point (even if you can't do something to change a situation you can still be emotionally available, except you never are) or he's just totally misunderstanding what Hawkeye's talking about somehow and thinking Hawkeye is being literal in some way?

Honestly Mike Farrell's delivery there is v strange to me too lol, because he sounds genuinely confused and freaked out but idk how you can miss Hawkeye's point man, the context is very clear, and if you're not used to Hawkeye's occasional overdramatics by now... Like him taking Hawk's line weirdly literally might work if it was in a casually dismissive way, like 'shut up lol you're not dying' but that wasn't the vibe.

I wonder if he's meant to be more disturbed than he otherwise might be because of Hawkeye's recent manic episode, projecting his feelings about that and running away again? Or maybe that's more like a convenient excuse to himself, because ofc he doesn't want to talk about his emotional constipation? idk.

[marley-manson]

yk a solid potential set up for beejhawk that gets around the whole cheating thing, BJ's inevitable guilt dragging everything down, etc, while also dodging enlightened 1950s poly saint Peg, would be BJ fucking Hawkeye, feeling really bad about it, telling Peg in a letter without telling Hawkeye so he can't stop him (and without saying it's a gay affair obviously so they don't get fucked by the army), and Peg writing back like 'i totally understand :) it's okay if you need comfort while we're apart i trust you to come home to me :)'

because Peg's been having an affair herself the whole time and this way she relieves some of her own guilt lol, a la Henry and his wife

then you also get easy post-canon beejhawk when the truth comes out and Peg wants to marry the new guy or BJ freaks out and leaves or whatever