#ship ht

[marley-manson]

Love how Hawkeye just knows that anyone who's spent 3 nights with Trapper would be willing to do anything for him.

[marley-manson]

the topic is Trapper and the army as foils, you have three hours, go

In no small part the satire of Mash, particularly in the first half of the show, is tied up with gender performance.

The army represents traditional, stifling and violent masculinity. This is shown through everything from freudian jokes about guns (eg Frank and Margaret's flirtations in The Sniper or The Gun), to Margaret trying to cajole Hawkeye into performing a more traditional standard of masculinity while treating him like a soldier in Comrades in Arms Part 2, to many jokes and comments about (usually) Hawkeye not being a real man in contrast to army standards and various specific army personnel (eg Lyle in Springtime, Flagg in White Gold), to Frank and Margaret's worship of the masculinity of the army ("He's twice the man you'll ever be," re: Flagg and Hawkeye, Margaret's lust for MacArthur, Frank pursuing the sniper in The Sniper in an attempt to be a "real man" in Margaret's eyes, etc) to many jokes positioning the military as a sexually aggressive man pursuing Hawkeye ("Sure, the sun the moon the stars, your high school letterman jacket. Same deal I promised nurse Baker." "A receipt please, and promise you'll go out with other doctors," etc.)

In contrast, the main characters all fail to perform traditional gender in some way, from crossdressing to immaturity to indecisiveness to peacefulness to Margaret's masculinity and Frank's pathetic failure to live up to his own masculine ideals, to just about everything about Hawkeye. His cowardliness, his jokes about not being a real man, his jokes about taking the feminine role in sexual encounters with men and women, even multiple double entendres about his average at best penis size.

Trapper is the most traditionally masculine of the main cast. He still subverts masculinity in some subtle ways here and there, such as the occasional feminizing joke and mentions of not being in great shape, but overall he's the more butch counterpart to Hawkeye's fem. He plays the role of boxer while Hawkeye plays the role of diva in their respective manager/star roleplaying episodes. He's broader and buffer and plays football, often seen playing catch with someone while walking around the compound, while Hawkeye disdains sports and doesn't participate. He reads Field and Stream which Hawkeye derides in Alcoholics Unanimous while making a wry comment about shaving his armpits. A past lover nicknamed him Big John.

And there are many, many jokes about Hawkeye and Trapper being sexual partners. The recurring Uncle Trapper and Aunt Hawkeye gag, if my father sees this you'll have to marry me, for me? only if you put those on, your father and I will tell you what we did to have you, that's when I fell in love with him, etc etc etc. It's constant. In these jokes Hawkeye usually takes the feminine role, though not strictly every time ("Me and the missus," is one exception in As You Were, the dance in Yankee Doodle Doctor is another).

Trapper's masculinity is differentiated from traditional military masculinity in a few ways. Most obviously, Trapper abhors the military's violence. He never uses guns and mocks Frank's obsession with them, he's a healer rather than a soldier, and he's disgusted by the results of military violence on the men on his operating table.

He's also secure in himself. The military's brand of masculinity is strongly characterized by insecurity and overcompensation. Frank is the main representative of this military insecurity - a coward who insists he's brave (The Army Navy Game), a man who clings to a phallic gun to compensate for his sexual and gendered inadequacies (a main theme of The Sniper, perfectly mirrored when the army itself comes in with a vastly disproprotionately powerful automatic machine gun on a helicopter to shoot down one sixteen year old), a homophobe repressing his own attraction to men (As You Were, the original script of George), etc. We also see this in Flagg, who implicitly sublimates sexual urges into violence (seen when he suggestively caresses his gun while describing how he wants to torture a boy in Officer of the Day).

Trapper doesn't need to overcompensate. He's well-endowed physically, he's portrayed as a competent and considerate lover, he's a brave man who doesn't mind being seen as a coward, and he may or may not be attracted to men but either way he's not a homophobe (George) and he doesn't express his sexuality through violence. When Margaret proves herself stronger than him, his response is to be impressed rather than offended (Bombed). When he dances with Hawkeye for a gag, he doesn't mind letting Hawkeye lead.

He's also differentiated in terms of tradition, with the mliitary representing a more propagandic 50s traditionalism, and Trapper representing a 70s, countercultural freedom from tradition. We see this in the way Trapper has plenty of sex despite being married, while adultery is a court-martial offense in the military. It's notable that he's open and carefree about it, while Frank and Margaret are surreptitious and hypocritical in their affair. This lack of traditionalism is also shown in his disrespect for authority, often in direct contrast to Frank and Margaret's worship of it, and his allyship to George who the military would persecute for his sexuality.

So ultimately we can see that while Trapper and the military are both examples of masculine performance, Trapper's masculinity differs from the military's in being more flexible, less violent, less traditional, and more secure. The military's masculinity is far more toxic than Trapper's, particularly in the context of 70s counterculture media, which aligns womanizing with sexual liberation rather than a lack of respect for women, accurately or not.

This contributes to their respective dynamics with Hawkeye.

Hawkeye, we've established, is usually more feminine, and there are a myriad of jokes characterizing Trapper as his sexual partner, as well as the military as a sexual pursuer.

The jokes Hawkeye and Trapper make about their relationship tend towards cozy domesticity. They're Radar's "aunt and uncle," they directly roleplay marriage ("Martha, we're going to have to move, the people upstairs are impossible,") and less directly behave as though married (the bickering in Alcoholics Unanimous, the discussion about naming their pony in Life With Father). Occasionally they're treated as a healthy couple in contrast to Frank and Margaret's toxicity ("While I'm gone, promise you'll go out with other doctors," vs "Touch anyone else and I'll cut off your hands" in Aid Station).

In some instances the jokes lean towards predatory - "If you're trying to get me drunk, it'll work," or "Who is this man in bed with me?" "I followed you home from the movies," but they're always playful, always fond. If Hawkeye takes on a submissive or victimized role in these jokes, it's one he has fun with and discards just as easily in the context of the rest of his relationship with Trapper.

So, it's important to note that Hawkeye and Trapper support each other and look after each other in an equal, enthusiastic friendship. From Trapper ensuring Hawkeye gets to sleep in Doctor Pierce and Mr. Hyde, to Hawkeye supporting Trapper when he wants to adopt a child, to Trapper right at Hawkeye's side as they attempt to procure an incubator, they are there for each other every step of the way. If their relationship is a marriage in some ways, it's a healthy, strong, and non-traditional marriage, an equal and open partnership free of jealousy and insecurities.

Compare that to the military's relationship with Hawkeye. In jokes it's characterized as powerful and predatory, far from an equal partnership. Sometimes it approaches positive - in Carry on Hawkeye, much of the humour is derived from Hawkeye and Margaret's gendered role reversal as she assumes military command of the unit. Hawkeye playfully calls her sir, seductively lies on her desk like a secretary in a porn film, and most notably treats an immunization shot as sexual penetration in a prolonged gag about sexual role reversal. Hawkeye has fun playing a sexually submissive role to a representative of military authority in this episode, but it is a submissive role.

Several of the one-off jokes have a similar sensibility, such as the double entendre of "My bellybutton's been puckering and unpuckering all day," in response to a representative of MacArthur assuming their excitement over the general's arrival to the unit, or Hawkeye's "Okay, take me, I'm yours," to Colonel Flagg. They demonstrate a willingness to play the receptive role on Hawkeye's part, but they also, pointedly, disturb the object of the jokes.

When Hawkeye makes these jokes that sexualize military authority, he's attempting to be provocative as well as defiantly drawing disruptive attention to his own powerlessness as a drafted surgeon. The power dynamic between Hawkeye and the authority of the military only goes one way, and Hawkeye gets a kick out of pointing it out in ways that perturb the representatives of that authority, but it's a power dynamic that takes its toll on him.

Many of Mash's plotlines revolve around Hawkeye rebelling and attempting to seize some scrap of agency back from the military. Adam's Ribs, for example, in which he starts a mild riot over the food he's being fed and spends the episode attempting to procure barbecue ribs from Chicago (which Trapper procures for him), or Back Pay where he tries to charge the military for his forced labour. A particularly notable example is Some 38th Parallels, in which Hawkeye complains about being paid the equivalent of a nickel per operation, and his frustration manifests in impotency until he can perform a gesture of rebellion against the military.

One unfortunate consistency of these episodes is that the army ultimately retains its power. When Hawkeye achieves his goals, it's only in small ways that do little more than satisfy his own need to assert his sense of self. Often, Hawkeye doesn't achieve his goal at all, but is thwarted by the army, such as in For Want of a Boot. In every instance he remains powerless in comparison to the authority of the military.

So the context in which Hawkeye makes these sexualized jokes about the military literally fucking him is one of abject helplessness. In a sense, all he's capable of is pointing out what the military is doing and putting it in his own, audacious terms. He's not capable of preventing it. His jokes usually have an edge of bitterness to them in delivery, and when they don't, that tone is imparted anyway by the greater context.

With Trapper, Hawkeye can play-act a marriage or an assault, but in either case he's an enthusiastically consenting, equal partner. Trapper's performance of masculinity allows for Hawkeye to take any role from victim to wife to husband, and enables Trapper to respond in kind from a position of equality and respect. The military, in its insecure, domineering performance of masculinity, is a dictatorial authority, never allowing Hawkeye perform any role but a feminized, victimized one, and only ever giving him the choice of whether to perform with a wry smile or a sneer.

In short, Trapper is the cool, considerate service top to the military's insecure domineering boyfriend.

I'm tagging everyone who enabled this lol, share the blame. @beansterpie @majorbaby @professormcguire @rescue-ram

[marley-manson]

Xena/Gabrielle, Fraser/RayK, TrapHawk :3

Thank you <3

Xena/Gabrielle

Ship It

What made you ship it?

Man I wonder what the tipping point was when I first watched the show lol... I mean I started out watching for the ship of course, but I think the moment that sold completely me was probably Gabrielle's "By the Gods! You are beautiful!" in Altared States. Just like, 'wow nothing has ever been more real than this.'

What are your favorite things about the ship?

I looooove that they're super fun to watch together, lots of cute episode tags full of flirty banter, lots of chemistry, so much homoeroticism it's impossible to articulate, extreme married vibes, but at the same time there's so much relationship drama to explore too! Like they have overt stuff like the rift arc in season 3 that leads to attempted murder (<3), but they also have more subtle things that never get fully addressed or reconciled, like Xena regularly abandoning Gabrielle and Gabrielle having to fight to stay by her side, or the fact that Gabrielle has to become a killer in order to live a life with Xena and that is very difficult for her to reconcile, or Gabrielle's potential resentment over Eve getting a magical redemption while her evil daughter had to die (lol this show.)

Xena puts Gabrielle through some shit, both actively and just by being the person she is, and I love it.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

It's a bit less popular to prefer later seasons fic with a more mature and experienced (and short-haired) Gabrielle, unforch lol. For a true unpopular opinion... I like that Xena dies and Gabrielle has to live on with her True Love and Soulmate as basically her backstory. I think it's a fitting way for Gabrielle's arc to end. Also I think she should have a lot of gay sex throughout the rest of her life with various amazons and goddesses but never settle down with one person.

Fraser Ray/K

Don’t Ship It

Why don’t you ship it?

I wanted to ship it, I watched the show specifically to get into the popular gay ship all the bnfs were writing good fic for back in the day, but I fell for Ray V first and I couldn't make the switch. I also didn't like the writing in season 3+4, I found it harder to connect to and get invested in any of the characters or relationships. It was too ungrounded, too many episodes starting in media res with little explanation (the punch scene that opened an episode really stood out to me as something that made me think 'I don't know why this is even happening' eg), the plots were too big and I missed the smaller scale of the first season, etc. (Many of these problems began in season 2, but they were definitely compounded as the show went on and Fraser, like, started living in his office and Bob became a full time cast member etc.)

What would have made you like it?

I'm not sure lol, I don't think I would've liked it even if I'd started at season 3 the way some people did, due to the writing not working for me. I guess maybe if the show maintained its first season tone and balance of grounded reality/cartoon comedy stuff I probably could've enjoyed Fraser/RayK as a ship. I probably still would've shipped F/V more, but when I first watched due south I was determined not to let the fact that I got into Ray V first stop me from enjoying F/K, so I think I could've gotten past that if I otherwise enjoyed their relationship.

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

There are some amazing Fraser/Ray K vids out there, many of which sell the ship better than the show did for me lol. Also like, there is some solid homoeroticism on the show, I appreciate that they were deliberately pandering to the slash fans in 1998 o7

Traphawk

Ship It

What made you ship it?

The first time I watched the show in 2011 I enjoyed their chemistry and the gay jokes and fully watched the show with the understanding that they were fucking offscreen all the time, but didn't get emotionally invested in them as a ship until Welcome to Korea lol, with the kiss and the airport run. That's when I officially started shipping it, I'd say. Trapper left him a kiss!!! That's what motivated Hawkeye to speed to the airport to catch him just in time to... we'll never know, but lbr I can only assume declare his love.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

They are always extremely fun to watch which is important for me in a ship. Great chemistry, fun vibes, excellent double comedy act, impeccable homoeroticism. On a character level I love that Hawkeye's like Ideal Person is someone he can do comedy bits with (judging also from how they established Carlye as someone who used to have that double act vibe with him, and Hawkeye regularly noting a sense of humour as something that turns him on) and I love that Trapper fills that role to a tee. I also love how mutually supportive of each other they are, always having each others' back when one of them has a problem, always together in all kinds of weather, always each others' first friend to turn to.

And I love the separation, both how gay it is but also the fact that it can be a source of drama. A ship needs that too, if I'm gonna love it.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Idk... I feel like I overall vibe with other hawktrap fans in most ways. I don't think this is necessarily unpopular with hawktrap fans, but overall I think it's a less popular take than the opposite: I don't think Trapper is insecure in his masculinity or has any notable internalized homophobia or repression. I don't think it's ooc to give him a bit more repression and/or internalized homophobia, but the version of Trapper in my head regularly went cruising and to gay bars back in Boston and only really differs from Hawkeye in a) being more careful and less reliant on his sense of comedic timing to keep him out of trouble, and b) being more of a top. Also I guess c) having a wife to cheat on lol, but I don't think that troubles him.

send ship asks

[marley-manson]

i s2g trapper is always the one pouring hawkeye a drink and never vice versa

i've gone through so many episodes now looking for the opposite and i can't find an example

[marley-manson]

TRAPPER JOHN: I’m not big on gestures. Unless there’s some kind of payoff.

REPORTER: Would you like to say hello to your own children right now?

TRAPPER JOHN: Not really. Not as just one more picture in our living room. It’s enough they’re seeing me. That’s a big enough kick for all of us.

[...]

TRAPPER JOHN: The doctors. The nurses. The orderlies – Koreans, mostly. Every day kind of bleeds into the next around here – in every sense of the word -the routine gets to be fairly unmemorable. But I have the feeling that years from now I’m gonna remember each and every one of them. And the face that goes with each one. (A PAUSE; THEN TO THE CAMERA) Hi, sweetheart. Hi, Becky. Hi, Cathy. 

[x]

This is exactly the mindset behind Trapper leaving Hawkeye a kiss. You know he spent like a full day trying to call Hawkeye to talk to him directly, resigned himself to not being able to and to just leaving because there’s no point in a gesture without payoff, leaving a note makes no sense to him because there’s no payoff, and therefore it’s just a futile meaningless gesture. And then you know that right before he got in the jeep to go to the airport he spontaneously turned to Radar and told him to give Hawkeye a kiss for him.

[marley-manson]

How would you rank all the popular mash ships?

I'm not really abiding by popularity lol, but for me and what I'm into specifically:

1 - Hawk/Trap

They're just so much fun to watch on screen. They have great chemistry, a very fun vibe, they can combine fluff and angst in very satisfying ways, they're probably less complicated than most of my favourite ships but what they lack in toxicity they make up for in fun.

2 - Hawk/Frank

They're just so much fun to write lol, they're so incredibly funny as a dynamic, and I enjoy trying to make it work as an actual relationship. Also I got a thing for pathetic loser tops.

3 - Hawk/BJ

I'm into the toxicity here, the kind of ship I'm more typically into, ie full of strife and misery, but they don't quite have the intensity of feeling for me to make it last or make me care about them resolving their issues and living happily ever after. I ship them as a fucked up fling.

4 - Hawk/Charles

I just think they could be fun together, though any endgame between them would require a lot of change on Charles' end.

5 - Hawk/Sidney

I'm more into it as Sidney fucking up professional boundaries than as a healthy thing, but I can def be into it.

6 - Any other gay ship with Hawkeye

Unabashedly ranked from Hawkeye bottoming to Hawkeye topping.

7 - Any gay Mash ship that doesn't involve Hawkeye

Mash is the Hawkeye show to me, it's what I'm here for, and I have virtually no vested interest in any ship that doesn't involve him.

8 - Hawkeye/any woman

I enjoy almost no het. If it's endgame it'll drive me away from fic I otherwise would enjoy, if it's just a one night stand I'll read it if I'm really into other aspects of the fic, character stuff or w/e, but I'll be wishing it was gay.

9 - Any het Mash ship that doesn't involve Hawkeye

Very much not for me.

10 - BJ/Peg/Hawkeye

True least fave ship in fandom. In theory I could be into it as a trainwreck that ends in divorce and Hawkeye metaphorically walking away from an explosion lol, but I've never seen that, and harassment from some of the shippers has made me actively hate it as opposed to merely disinterested.

Also Hawkeye/OMCs are surprisingly high, probably right after Hawk/Frank, but I didn't count that as a ship. But I like the idea of Hawkeye with random dudes during the show, or Hawkeye with a guy who's unaffiliated with the Korean war post-canon.

Thanks for asking, this was fun!

[marley-manson]

Life With Father is So Good goddamn, and such a Hawk/Trap manifesto

you got the flirting, you got the married couple jokes, you got the pitch perfect chemistry as always

and you also got an episode where everyone talks over each other and fails to listen and understand each other constantly, to the point where it’s the clear theme in each of the other subplots (Bris, Henry’s wife, Mulcahy’s sister), in which Hawkeye and Trapper are pointedly on the exact same wavelength instead in contrast.

like, okay:

The episode starts with no one able to understand the Korean woman due to her accent. Henry spends the episode crowing about and then bemoaning his wife’s letter with no one paying attention to him. Mulcahy also spends half the episode fretting about his sister with no one really listening to him either. Both of them are too wrapped up in their problems to notice anything else. There’s a scene where they talk over each other and completely miss what the other is saying. Frank and Margaret start the episode disagreeing about the Korean woman and end it yelling at each other. Henry gets his wife on the phone but they get cut off after she admits to the affair without any conclusion or catharsis or understanding between them. Mulcahy also gets cut off from the rabbi during the Bris ceremony and is unable to continue. etc etc

And, delightfully enough, you can draw a minor parallel between the Korean mother and her husband and Hawkeye and Trapper in terms of mutual understanding in contrast to every other character.

Her note said that her husband is the one who requested the ceremony be done and his name is Jacobson, meaning either they met as two Jewish people or the mother is a convert - or it’s an interfaith marriage but I think that would require disregarding that Jewish heritage is matrilineal? I’m no expert here, but the point is that based solely on the information the episode gives us we know the husband is Jewish while we don’t know anything directly about the wife’s faith. And she clearly connects with her husband through his/their faith to the extent that she is able to perform the ceremony he requested herself. Basically it’s demonstrating a connection through love and mutual understanding that excludes everyone else around them, in deliberate ironic parallel to no one being able to understand her English at the start. She struggles to make herself understood to everyone else, but the scene where she speaks Hebrew shows that she and her husband are able to understand each other perfectly.

Which is the very pointed vibe with Hawkeye and Trapper throughout the entire episode lol. Even beyond stuff like the cute married couple joke where they treat the pony like a pregnancy, throughout the episode they’re in their own little world together, excluding others and demonstrating a nearly psychic level of mutual understanding. Like eg out of nowhere Hawkeye says, “Prince,” and Trapper instantly replies back with, “Lightning,” knowing it’s a prospective pony name. “For a second I thought you were gonna say ‘hunky dory’” “It crossed my mind.” Their mutual obsession with the contest that they focus on together to the exclusion of everyone else’s problems around them. Playing poker together and ignoring Henry. Hawkeye rejecting Mulcahy’s help with the contest in mock defensiveness after automatically and seamlessly including Trapper. Trapper getting distracted from tossing the football back and forth with the offscreen guy during his banter with Hawkeye, leading to the football being thrown directly into their tent. And obviously Trapper ditching the celebration afterwards to go horseback riding alone with Hawkeye <3

idk how much of this is deliberate, as far as couple parallels go it’s less on the nose than, say, Ain’t Love Grand lol, but it sure is thematically appropriate and extremely fun to watch. And even if you see the parallel as a bit of a stretch (though as the satisfyingly ironic cap to the theme of miscommunication which Hawkeye and Trapper pointedly defied idt it is), it’s still a delight to watch everyone in the episode ignoring and misunderstanding each other except Hawkeye and Trapper.

(You could also say that Henry reading between the lines and realizing his wife has had an affair is another example of understanding that adds to the parallels, though imo it’s a little iffier due to their unsatisfying phone conversation.)

[marley-manson]

I want a fic where Hawkeye seduces BJ away from his wife on purpose, a la his attitude with Carlye, but the problem is I cannot buy the emotional intensity it would require from Hawk. I got my wip where BJ makes the first move but Hawk takes full advantage, but Hawkeye's fully aware it's a war fling and honestly I can't really see him wanting a happily ever after with BJ. So it's a non-starter, as an idea, bc Hawkeye isn't callous enough to seduce BJ away from a wife he apparetly actually likes just for a fling. Unfortunately bc I would love that dynamic lol.

(I mean it miiiiiiight work if BJ was fully gay and Hawkeye figures this out before BJ does and assumes his marriage is sad and doomed anyway, but that's hard to reconcile with Hawk taking BJ's feelings for his wife at face value in canon, and idk what could make Hawk assume BJ wasn't attracted to women at all. He fucks Margaret fling-style with no interest in committing while she's married, but he already knows she's miserable with Donald so it's a different situation.)

Anyway so then I was thinking, maybe it could work with Trapper, like, post canon? They hook back up, and Hawk wants to fuck and even commit but Trapper post war is trying to make his marriage work and Hawkeye ends up seducing and arguing and cajoling etc. And because this is about Hawkeye's bad behaviour he wouldn't win, but Trapper would be miserable in his marriage so it would end unhappily.

Like straight up I just love how gung-ho Hawkeye was about trying to get Carlye to leave her husband for him lol and it's a little disappointing that it's such a common take that Hawkeye respects people's marriages, despite The More I See You (and Comrades in Arms to a lesser extent, not to mention all the engaged nurses he's fucked lol. I mean even in Hanky Panky Hawkeye thought BJ fucking Donovan was funny until he realized BJ was actually upset about it.)