MASH

[sholio]

I got utterly steamrolled by a cold this past week, and spent the time very usefully flat on my back watching several seasons of M*A*S*H. Technically rewatching, because I watched the whole show in syndication (probably multiple times per episode) when I was a teenager, but I haven't seen most of it in 30+ years.

I semi-liveblogged this to sheron.

Me on Dec. 4:
It's turning out to be a pretty good accompaniment to the current fandom. It's not making me fannish-feeling by itself, but it's good background inspiration for h/c-on-a-mission type feels.
[...] I can tell you exactly the point when it MIGHT make me fannish, and that's when the sympathetic antagonist character shows up 😔

Dec. 5:
Sholio — 12/5/24, 9:41 PM
MASH update: I have skipped ahead to the episodes with the character I mentioned earlier 😔
Everything is fine
Further updates to come

Everything was not fine.

By Dec. 6, Sheron, being the good friend that she is, reminded me of the Stages of the Abyss:

Stage 0: This looks like my kind of show
Stage 1: This show is fun but not for me.
Stage 2: I have done nothing else in my free time but watch this show (and I don't want to write anything for it) <--- YOU ARE HERE
Stage 3: I may want to write something for it, but it's really just h/c and platonic hugging
Stage 4: ???? abyss.

Me:
I have only progressed as far as thinking about fic and reading h/c on AO3, thank u very much

Anyway I'm almost done with season seven, and I believe I've passed stage 3 and I'm into stage 4 because I'm absolutely loving scioscribe's Hawkeye/Charles fic on Ao3.

(I am completely gone on Charles right now, or as this Tumblr post called him and I shall henceforth forever think of him, "fancy little swamp prince." No criticism will be taken at this time. I continue to think fondly of rionaleonhart's immortal words about finding the worst character in the canon and making a beeline for them, although this is the SECOND worst, thank u very much, because Frank exists. Also David Ogden Stiers is a comic genius and I am very much not over the way his eyes sparkle when he's being smug.)

Comments

[starwatcher]

I look forward to any fic you write. I'm old enough to have watched it during first run -- with my dad, who'd been an Army medic at the tail end of WWII and after -- and have all the DVDs. Gotta say, Charles isn't my favorite -- but he did allow a softer, more human side to show occasionally. I remember Charles finding one-handed music for the pianist whose hand was damaged, and how he sat with Hawkeye while H waited for news of his father's surgery, and the way he protected and encouraged the soldier who stuttered. Hm, yeah, as someone else said, kind of Rodneyesque.

Anyway, it'll be fun to see what you do with him.