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charlesemersonwinchesteriii · 1 year

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If you already got this from someone and you just haven't answered yet pls ignore, but if no one else asked i want to add klinger+charles for the relationship bingo ask meme

ok I’m getting to this late as FUCK but PLEASE nobody ever hesitate to send me something for an ask game if I get one ask on a topic I will go YIPPEE and if I get 20 asks on the same topic I will go YIIIIIPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Anyhow you're indeed the only one around here who shows outside interest in our rarepair insanity, a boon I will remember as long as I live btw. Mx. Smoking Marlene Dietrich I owe you the WORLD

TRIPLE BINGO because they are EVERYTHING. to me.

It’s funny. This is the one duo where I almost do just want to post the bingo and leave it at that. Part of me wants to tell people about this ship SO bad, to give novel-length explanations and justifications and theses. But the other part of me is like you know what. You either Get It or you don’t.

Anyways there are 10000 things to say about Them but one is: I specifically did not fill in “gay af to have a sworn rival” even though it cost me another bingo because one of the most fascinating things about the interactions between these two is that they actually do not have a mutually adversarial relationship--even though that’s what writers usually do with two characters on diametrically opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum.

I’ve been thinking about this a bit because I’ve seen people say things like, “It’s great what a funny duo they turned into when they started out hating each other, haha.” And I get why one would think like this but IMO it’s actually not the case! Charles acts more familiar with Max over time because he does that with everyone--

(Though he’s racist towards Max throughout, of course. Because Charles’ racism never goes away. You know that right. MASH fandom I am putting my hands on your shoulders and asking: You know that, right? I keep seeing people talk about Charles having a character arc and a redemption arc so I’m just. I’m just making sure.)

--but Max has actually been pretty nice to him right from the start, back when Charles’ relationship with basically every character was antagonistic. As soon as s6e13 he tells Charles how similar they are, how they should work together to try and get away from the war, how they’re “soulmates”. Even after Charles insults him, he straight up says, “I’m on your side, Major”, which I’m pretty sure remains one of the nicest things someone canonically says to Charles, ever. Just one scene, but emblematic of a greater whole, of quite a few future scenes where Max gamely engages with Charles even when it puts him in unpleasant situations.

And of course, the motivation the show usually gives, on those occasions when it thinks about Maxwell’s motivations at all, is a simple throwaway “Well Charles is paying him / giving him some other material benefit, so obviously Klinger will be his kicked dog! You all know how Middle Eastern people are! We are a groundbreakingly progressive show btw.”

But man. Fuck that shit. This is far afield of my original point but the thing is, Max’s interactions with Charles are often the most egregious exempla of every way the later seasons fucked over my girl here. It almost seems useless to try to analyze any of Max’s actions after a certain point from a Watsonian perspective, when the Doylist reading of the show being too racist and stupid to do anything coherent with him is the ultimate explanation, and sometimes the only explanation you can even come up with, because shit just makes NO fucking sense in-universe.

But unfortunately I’m a stupid cringe ass fanfic writer/reader, and I love this character, and Max already gets so little screentime compared to the main protagonists, and I don’t want to just ignore him because of the decisions of writers who didn’t care about him.

(That’s the entire reason I started shipping this stupid thing in the first place, btw. I just wanted to read some fanfic where Max is the main character and idk if you’ve noticed but if it weren’t for AO3 user stateofintegrity and their ~problematic cringe ship~, the pickings would be pretty fucking slim.)

So I like to pretend there’s a better reason for Maxwell going from “Major Burns I hate you so fucking much I am going to kill us both with this fucking grenade” to the equivalent of a tumblr blog responding to pathetic anon hate with “are we about to have sex”. After all, if you’re going to write Maxwell yourself, get inside his head and all, then you also have to account for why he tolerates all the OTHER characters’ racism towards him in later seasons, too.

And the messy problematic reasoning I come up with is that Max is at heart the kindest and also most emotionally intelligent character on the show, and even the liberalized version of the 1950s our story is set in is a systemically bigoted universe that is all he’s ever known and experienced, and he’s certain these are good people, really, when it matters. And being emotionally intelligent, and generally intelligent too for that fucking matter, and observant and insightful, he can tell there’s a big difference between Frank and Charles, and perhaps less of a difference, even, between Charles and Hawkeye. Maybe when you watch things from Hawkeye’s POV, the ideological and moral differences between him and Charles are huge, but maybe if you were in Max’s POV instead there wouldn’t be quite as much of a distinction between them. I don’t know! I don’t know. Just some ideas, I don’t know.

Of course getting into fucking. internalized racism and such is pretty uncomfy and exhausting shit. And that’s not even touching all the gender stuff my girl has going on. You start to see why nobody wants to get into this character’s head much. But I do :3 And I do honestly think sometimes the most effective way to do that is to look at the Messiest Ship In All Of MASH (TM). As I’ve talked about before from the Charles angle, I love this ship precisely because of its Problems, because they’re problems that exist anyways for both characters, and having the two of them interact makes the problems impossible to ignore, so they maybe finally get to be dealt with. I mean, I just don’t think the optimal resolution to Charles and Max’s racism-laden interactions is that Charles goes back home to a big opulent house and Max struggles to save up to buy a used car in After M*A*S*H. That is not super satisfying. to me.

This post got derailed to hell but I think what I was trying to say is that Max treats Charles SO much better than that bastard man deserves and I would at least like to see something come of it, for the love of--

#HAPPY NEW YEARS EVE I lost so much sleep to write this and for what. truly for what.#to hopefully not get hashtag canceled for it on the off chance someone reads it I guess ghdsjgkhdsklkhk anyways #I meant to say I actually usually hate when Rich Character and Poor Character are portrayed in a Rivalry Of Equals type scenario cause like #nooooo actually that's not how life works. power differential means something. this is no a fair fight.#Starky loves answering questions #marley-manson #putting my organizational tags early this time cause apparently if you put them too late they don't show up on your own blog tag searches??#I couldn't find my unpopular opinion Charles manifesto ;;;_;;; thankfully I'd linked it before smh #did any of this make ANY sense like just out of curiosity. clap if it made sense.#mash #charmax #idk man I just can't separate the fact #that Charles being racist to Klinger is contemporaneous with #1) the other characters not really giving a shit about Charles' racism #and 2) the other characters also being racist to Klinger themselves #albeit less frequently depending on the season #I've said it before and I'll say it again #everything people hate about this ship should be things they hate about much more than JUST this ship #the concept of shipping these two together just makes you suddenly step back and take notice of all the latent garbage #and that's part of why I like it. because it makes you take notice.#the other part of why I like it is that Max deserves a sugar daddy who will buy him anything he wants forever #also this isn't the direction I ended up going with the post #but my favorite thing about the total imbalance in how they see each other #is that Max makes Charles soooo angry all the time #and Charles barely registers as an annoyance to Max most of the time #it's like when a cat has decided one of your appendages is an enemy to be attacked #and you're just sitting there like haha playtime with my silly kitty :3 #K if you're reading this btw you know I don't think your stuff is cringe or problematic #that was for the Outsiders the Uninitiated the Ignorant #you understand how it is. I am giving you 1000000 kisses now also.

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tunakat · 1 year

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im feeling so many ways abt late a5a2 homestuck (i just finished it actually) but the sufferer hit way different.

homestuck late a5a2 spoilers incoming!!!

adding this after writing way too much shit that im not fucking deleting: vent cw too

ok so my main thing that made me feel something (a rarity, like almost unheard of /gen /srs) was the signless' story. something about it just envoked feelings within me, i dont even know how to describe them

something about this fucking frame just made me feel... idk what. dread? pity? genuinely idk. obviously its not the whole "ouuuu tied up so hawttt" bullshit, idk i think the story combined with the music and imagery just made it to the farthest pits of my soul, and this point was the breaking/overwhelming point.

i almost want to sit thru all of it again just to try and figure it out. i want to feel that again to understand it. obviously if i read it again i wont feel anything cuz thoughts, emotions, and feelings are a rare experience for me.

i feel like the story felt like a metaphor for my life, not to get all emo and dark and edgy or whatever about it, im being completely level-headed and genuine with this.

fuck thats what it feels like's happening inside of me. i feel my compassion and love for others depleting, as its been for years, with the cards ive been dealt (not getting into that right now). ive been conscious of an eternal rage slowly growing inside of me, and these past few years i feel like the ratio of compassion vs. rage within me is leaning in a way that im just barely able to see how bad and scary it is. ive been subjected to a life of suffering in almost every place i could imagine, yet i always tried to stay a loving, caring person for the few individuals who bring about some light in this darkness.

yet i can see it happening before my very eyes. i see i am no longer who i once was, im worse, im violent and enraged all the time and its getting worse and harder contain with every passing day. its scary being able to watch yourself rot away into a bottomless pot of boiling rage.

torture and execution has always been the metephor ive used when describing how i live and feel inside. i think to see something so deep within me and something so relatable in front of me, written and drawn out as a story, i think that broke me.

#homestuck spoilers #cw vent #the signless #homestuck #this comic is the only thing thats made me feel something like this #it kinda makes me feel.. less lonely and like im not the only one whos lived like this.#kinda fucking wild how its the mutant bloods who i relate to the most #its almost like i am them in a way. perhaps my creation triggered a reaction throughout the universe to have them created #like i was their inspiration or theyre based off me #i know its not true but it makes me feel better #idk how i feel #i learned feelings the way an AI learns how people talk #or how they act etc. so like all these complex things are impossible for me to compute #ive written too much my hand really hurts cuz the whole possible fractured wrist thing or whatever. bye #no fucking way im leaving this in the queue or drafts #this is being posted publicly so everyone can see my fucking stupid fucking meltdowns #i really need to stop writing so much self deprecating and self exposing and self discovery bullshit #is that even what this is??? i dont fucking know anymore i cant stop typing fuck #nobody even reads any of my rants or tags or vents or whatever anyways. not like im looking for help or pity #but fuck i dont even know what reason i write or post shit like this #nothing good will ever come out of it #god i hate myself more than anyone else #i guess its good im my biggest adversary. i keep close tabs on each and every move ive made in the past #and everything i may or may not do in my future #i just realized this sounds like im playing a character wtf is wrong with me am i really this fucking moronic?#this is genuinely such a pathetic depressing annoying piece of shit to read back but i still feel like i have to post it #fuck the tags are longer than the post this is so stupid #fuck

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