low key feel stupid asking you this but do you perhaps have any conscientious book recommendations about the us military history? its kind of hard trying to dig through The Propaganda lol
mmmmyeah maybe, check here.
+ it's been years since I read it so idr if it touches on military stuff but Howard zinn's a people's history of the United States might interest you for a more "conscientious" look at us history
the thing is though, idk what you mean by The Propaganda, like idk what assumptions youre bringing to the field of military history. every historian has an angle obviously, otherwise they wouldn't have anything to write about. certain writers favor discussing the strategic aims of xyz military actions; some want to talk about the "Great Men" involved and their personalities; some want to talk about the effect xyz military action had on innocent civilians, service members, the environment, etc. You can find about a trillion different angles when discussing military history and 1.) that's a good thing and 2.) some are more "conscientious" than others but absolutely none of them (at least none of them worth reading) are going to be as simple as "military good" or "military bad"
I really dislike how people dismiss actual historical research (i.e. not movies or TV shows) as "propaganda." if the writer had an ideological bent -- well so does everyone lol that's what makes it interesting. sorry I can't recommend you a military history where the historian's viewpoint is "military bad." how fucking boring and myopic would that be lol. why would you want to read that.
you're never going to read Just One Thing and come away with an enlightened view of history, and that goes for literally any topic. the way to dig through The Propaganda is simply to read more, read different viewpoints and angles, and extrapolate your own viewpoint and angle from your own wide-scope research
this was sort of an inarticulate reaction post I drafted when I woke up to the news of val's passing at 6 am yesterday morning. of course there is so much more to say. it goes without saying that he was one of the best to ever do it, but the effect he had on my own personal life is so huge I feel that I have to get it down somewhere, just to put it outside of me.
with the news of his death yesterday, I lost my absolute favorite part of my absolute favorite movie. his performance as iceman in top gun inspired me to dedicate multiple years of my short life to writing about him, as many of you know, culminating in a 350,000 word project which developed my skills as a writer more than my entire formal education combined. AND his performance in top gun wholeheartedly inspired the 100-page senior honors research thesis I JUST submitted for review, on April 1st, the day he died, on the portrayal of senior military leadership in 20th century military fiction. additionally, my interest in his portrayal as iceman led to my interest in the aerospace industry, and is practically the only reason I am pursuing aerospace as a career, full-time, after I graduate. not to mention how his other movies have affected me; of course I grew up with the prince of Egypt like everybody else, and kiss kiss, bang bang might as well be in my top 4 on letterboxd for how often I rewatch it... plus heat, tombstone, the doors... it goes on and on and on...
I have lost a huge part of myself alongside him. he is without a doubt the sole reason I am who I am today, and he is the reason I will be who I am in the future. I wish I had gotten the chance to thank him for that. I knew, rationally, that I would never meet him--irrationally, though, I always assumed we'd have more time with him. while all I can hope is that he's finally able to rest easy, now, I have to say I wish we hadn't lost him so soon. still: what a joy and what an honor it was to briefly share this life with him.
wip wednesday: "there's only one bed" except it's actually "there's only one hotel room" and it's washington d.c. in 1986 and they actually hate each other
YOU'RE ALIVE??? - my reaction upon seeing your most recent reblog
Anyway, your fic and blog single-handedly kickstarted my U.S. military history obsession <3
im alive!!!! yeah I've been away for a while. it, ah... has not been a grrrreat time to be a military historian or a Big Fan of military propaganda pieces like Top Gun for the last year or so...
lmfao I just saw that the second trump admin plans to haul up all the commanders in charge of the Afghanistan withdrawal (which HE negotiated btw) in front of congress with the plan to charge them all with TREASON per the UCMJ (good fucking luck dude)
but um in my timeline... that includes navy secretary 2021-2022 tom iceman kazansky, bro... so in case you're wondering what these characters are up to in the present day apparently the answer is "getting investigated for treason." sorry to bring down the mood. my happy ending's a little sour now.
mostly I've been insanely busy. I graduate university in may & have to have a journalism capstone, an English research thesis (my paper on military commanding officers in fiction inspired by my top gun fics tbh) and a creative writing capstone (novel) done by march. plus job applications, work for the place where im currently freelancing, apartment hunting... so im a wee bit crunched lately.
some minor updates for anyone who still cares: I am, extremely slowly, still editing WWGATTAI & the other stories. I've finished a complete overhaul of the Carole-dies chapter, chapter 7, but have yet to post it because I'd like to sync a logistical change in the story across the other pieces. and I'm mostly done with a COMPLETE overhaul of chapter 6 (aka "the nineties" chapter where ice & mav move in together & build their family) which goes into much more detail about how... emotionally and logistically... they could pull that off. + a lot more baseball stuff + the Clinton sex scandal. which leaves just chapter 10 left to do. ugh, my least favorite, which is why im putting it off... and then debriefing etc. which won't take as long because I don't honestly care about debriefing at all and I just have very minor changes to make to it. slider doesn't need editing and idgaf about the other pieces.
once I finish with the edits, which will happen eventually I swear because more than anything I just want to hold the updated edited final thing in my hands the way I did with the first draft, I'll upload my pdf (with meta analysis and notes that go back to mid-2022) for u guys to do with as you wish
also for the m:i doubleheaders I am planning on editing my m:i fic pre-m:i8 next year and pending ilsa life status will write much much more
but “thank you for saving my life” maverick has spent more than three decades believing that the world would be better if he had been the one to die in that crash. has tried to do everything he can to atone for that moment. including fulfilling the dying request of the boy’s mother (whom he loved like a sister) aided by his own fear of his surrogate son dying so so young like his father and estranging his son from him. maverick goes on that mission knowing he’ll die saving his son as his final act of atonement. and he almost gets his wish. until the son he pushed away saves him in return and he realizes. his death is not required for atonement. sacrifice doesn’t have to be the end but can allow him to live. to let the grief and the guilt go. to thank his son for saving his life. because he wants to live. and “it’s what my dad would have done” bradley doesn’t remember much of his father but he knows goose loved him. he knows goose would have done anything for maverick. but goose wasn’t the man who raised rooster. his dad raised him. his dad taught him of the love required to sacrifice yourself for others. his dad taught him to never leave your wingman. his dad taught him to not think, just do. and through all the pain and grief and time lost he finally understands. because dammit he is his fathers’ son.
As of 15th May 2024, these are some of the BEST stories I have read in the fandom. Of course, this is completely subjective and there are many personal factors as to why I crowned them God Tier.
Mainly:
Reading it for the first time: ‘Oh, this is really good, I’m going to be thinking about this for the rest of my life’
When compiling the list: ‘Oh my god, this fic, man, this fic!!’
There are many other fics that match the first criteria, but for it to be on this list, I needed to have these two reactions.
REMINDER! READ THE AUTHORS' TAGS AND WARNINGS!!! They’re there for a reason. PLEASE make sure you understand where the story is going to be before reading!!
Without further ado, I present to you, my roman empires:)
Winner Categories:
1. Best of the Best Authors (1/3)
2. Best of the Best Series (2/3)
3. Best of the Best Fics (3/3)
4. :]
Best of the Best Authors
Authors that I trust with my life, whose work are ALL incredibly well written.
COMPACFLT @compacflt
They’re the first person to pop in my head when I was thinking about making this list. No amount of time and words will be enough for me to describe how good their work is. Seriously. It’s on a level I’ve never seen before for fanfiction. The world building, the characterization, the prose, everything. COMPACFLT has a way of understanding these characters, it makes so much sense and fits so well with canon. I’m just at a loss for words. Genuinely the reason I converted to Icemav supremacy.
When We Get Around to Talking About It
Goose has been dead for a week and a half when Iceman loses his first wingman in a dogfight with six Soviet MiGs over the Sea of Okhotsk.
Goose has been dead for thirty years when Iceman loses his second wingman to a surface-to-air missile on the tail-end of a mission he's responsible for: he's sent his family on a suicide mission to destroy a uranium enrichment facility in Russia's Far East.
This is the story of those thirty years in the middle.
(Or: Tom Kazansky rises through the ranks while trying to stay a good man. If he ever was one to begin with.)
This was the first story I’ve read from them. And it’s so… I don’t have words. It’s told from Ice’s perspective, filling the gaps between TG and TG:M with added Icemav and Hangster. In my mind this is canon:D
Debriefing (& Other Stories)
"We can start here, I guess. If we're talking about us," Pete says. "Nineteen-eighty-six. The first thing I thought, when I saw you in that O-club, was: Iceman is off-limits. Capital O, capital L."
Despite himself, despite the fear, Tom laughs a little. "Oh, yeah? Why's that?"
"Well, first off, we were competition. And yeah, you were attractive, but then you opened your mouth and I swear. You were just an asshole. Goose is trying to introduce you to me and here I am thinking about how much of an asshole you are. Shut up about Cougar, asshole."
"It was supposed to be a friendly competition!"
"Yeah, right. So that's what I was thinking: he's attractive, clearly doesn't know how to talk to other men, might be into the proposition if I framed it the right way. But he's an asshole, so this competition is just gonna be friendly." Pete pauses. Then he says, "Ice, you wanna get married?"
And that's how they start talking about it.
(Or: they finally get around to talking about it. Plus a couple extra stories for good luck.)
Sigh and send COMPACFLT a loving look. This Maverick's POV adds so much to the story without being repetitive. COMPACFLT deliberately tells their story like puzzle pieces, and they complete each other—just like Icemav, if you will.
The Slider oneshot is truly something else. I was so eager for the upload and kept an eye on their account for updates religiously. To flesh out a character that barely has any source material is an incredible skill to have. And the Bradley oneshot… Omg… My favorite characterization of Bradley, period.
Tremors & Aftershocks
They both come back to their senses and stop openly crying again eventually. The stitches fall out of the thirty-year-old wounds and the scars fade back to skin-color. Life stops being so painfully raw after a couple weeks back home. You get used to miracles the way you get used to anything else. One day at a time.
[Or: 40 years of extras, from 1982-2022. Some true love, some heartbreak, some miracles.]
To me, this one has a different feeling from the other two. More focused on Ice and Mav’s relationship as opposed to the whole plotline. It’s tender and bittersweet and feels like being hugged for the first time and then told that you wouldn’t get another hug in thirty years time.
What impresses me most is that, if you go to COMPACFLT’s Tumblr account, you’ll see the thought they’ve put for these stories are INSANE. They’re so educated on the military and its history and it adds so much to these characters. I’m not American and all my writing for Top Gun will always stem from google searches and other fics. If you’re a nerd like me and like to read about other’s analysis about topics they know nothing about, I suggest you go to their account and have fun.
COMPACFLT, you have captured my soul with your writing. Thank you for your service and I wish you well in life.
AortaArgent @aortaargent
If you’re looking for an author who can write smut like nothing else, go to their profile. Better yet, click here, and scroll down to the threads they made about girl!Mav and get horny real quick. It’s a shortcut to heaven really. (And yes, I’m still upset that they seem to have left the fandom, but I still hold the stories they’ve left behind close to my heart:)) My favorites:
like a shotgun (needs an outcome)
“Ice gave me a handjob when we did this,” he argues.
“Oh, that’s what gets you moving? Seeing who comes first?” With that, Slider takes hold of him, wrapping his hand around and keeping his fist steady. “Go on, baby girl. Fuck it like a good little -”
He squeezes Slider’s balls a little harder than he’d imagine is necessarily pleasant. For Slider. It's definitely nice for him.
“Fuck,” Kerner chokes out, weakly.
Ice sounds like he’s trying not to laugh. “I told you he bites.”
In which there are multiple realisations, improbable numbers of pilots hanging out in a shared shower, volleyball games and verbal tennis. Yes, it's compulsory to wear your dogtags in the shower - never know when you could need identification. (Only kidding, it's for added fuckability.)
It’s so hot... but believable at the same time. BDSM is just one of those things where you read about it and can tell if the author has experience or is just extremely well-informed.
Eye to Eye
“Maybe it’s not just us looking to get a piece of you,” Wolf says. He’s right by Maverick’s head, and a shiver rolls down his shoulders in a sweeping tide at the soft click of each word against his ear. “Maybe we offered. You’re so pretty, Mav. It’s not a hard sell.”
His hands twitch with the effort of not reaching up to tear off the blindfold and find out if they’re telling the truth or just winding him up. It’s possible. Occupied, blindfolded, he might not have noticed the door opening. More guys could have been in the showers. Two hands circle his ankles, firm over his boots, and hold him steady. Someone else has his left hand, kneading the tendons down the back of it. Anyone and anything is plausible.
A continuation. Finally.
HOT DAMN. That’s all.
AortaArgent portrayed Ice and Mav’s relationship as absolute and secure while having fun with Mav’s dynamic with the other guys. All of their works are mind-boggling and simply amazing!
thecarlysutra @icemankazansky
Need I say more? Carly’s one of the most prominent members of the Top Gun fandom. Actually, I trust any member of the Top Gun Old Guard. With Carly, there’s something about their writing that makes me think of discovering an old box of CDs you used to watch relentlessly, dusty and worn, but the nostalgia rushes back and it’s achingly familiar. You can tell they’ve been writing for Top Gun for so long the characters kind of became their own. And when you click on any fic they wrote, you can fall and trust they’ll catch you. My favorites:
and i promise, you're the locksmith
“Is something going on in your neighborhood?” Maverick asked. “Like … a pest problem or something?”
“You could say that,” Ice said.
“Like … a coyote or something?”
“Suitors,” Ice said.
Maverick's attempts to woo Iceman are somewhat complicated by the promise Ice has made: Anyone who wants to marry him must catch his cat, which wears the key to his house around its neck on a silver chain. Inspired by the Tumblr legend.
This one’s so cute!!! Ugh, I’m never going to get tired of reading Icemav fall in love over and over again.
Dreams of Impact
Maverick's trip in Darkstar takes him further than he ever imagined possible.
Sigh for the second time and send hearts Carly’s way. Basically, Mav gets transported to another universe and weird things happen. I love fics that dabble with the universe, the what-ifs, the what could’ve been. Do you ever have that moment when you make a decision, look back and wonder how life would be if you chose differently? Click on the link and read 🫵
aelibia @topgunreacts
God. aelibia’s just too good. It’s like banger after banger after banger. If you’re looking for an author whose work is a guaranteed good read, click the link and it’ll show you magic. They have Icemav ranging from tender and soft to angsty, portraying all different sorts of love and a way of writing explicit sex that I’ve never found anywhere else.
I can’t even pick which one’s my favorite because they’re all my favorite. Especially the series they wrote, oh my god. I love them all. However, one that I reread religiously and being giddy over is this:
Wine Dark Sea
Raised by a selkie mother bound to a human man, Ice returns to the human world as a teenager with a singular purpose: to find the source of human strength, and claim it for himself. But after a careless mistake binds him to another human man, Ice is forced to reconsider his most fundamental beliefs: What is the meaning of strength? And what is the cost of freedom?
It’s so silly at times and heartbreaking most of the time. I especially love the later chapters where the evil is defeated and Ice is just being a silly seal while Mav’s being the supportive partner that he is. This fic is the SOLE REASON that my favorite animal is a seal. Thank you for opening my eyes to something that has been so obvious from the start, your majesty aelibia.
I also humbly present these seal drawings because the image of Ice galumphing around a Navy base, complete with wet smacks and people shrieking in horror makes me laugh everyday. That, and the scene where Mav is surrounded by four fat harbor seal pups and reading a story to them. Eleven out of ten.
When it comes to historical research, do you research for things that DON'T exist? For example, foods that are common now but didn't exist in the average American restaurant or grocery in the '80s or '90's? Words, phrases, and entire concepts that are commonly accepted today but unheard of to the average American when Mav and Ice were at Top Gun?
Your writing is so unbelievably good.
not really because I don't care about food, I care about the literary device that is "taking communion." i.e. it doesn't matter what they eat, it only matters that they're eating together, for the plot.
And, okay, showing my little-kid bias, but was there actually stuff in grocery stores in the 80s/90s that wouldn't be there today/vice versa? brands might change, like okay Pringles might not exist but you still have potato chips; and obviously specialty stuff like what you find in your average Asian market might not be commonplace, but, like, were the 90s all that different from today, American-food-wise? its my assumption that they weren't, but I also wasn't alive in the 90s, so. Um, ectocooler Hi-C, maybe? that's the one 90s food I know.
attitudes of course are what change. today's concept of being so QUICK to publicly label sexual identities would be extremely foreign, for instance. obviously people did label their sexualities in the 80s & 90s, people were definitely calling themselves bisexual and such, but probably not the people ice & mav would be hanging out with, in the Reagan-era navy. which is what my fics are about. that's the whole point.
and, also, COMMUNICATION changes. I have never used a payphone in my whole life so I actually have no idea how they work. but they were ubiquitous "back then," and lend themselves to amazingly interesting conflict (omg I don't have enough change to call my boyfriend maverick who's mad at me!!!) which is why I lean on payphones so much in my writing. honestly, im gonna be real, the invention of the cell phone makes telling stories about miscommunication so much harder. instant-speed communication would make certain stories less interesting, which is why a lot of horror movies default to the "no cell service" trope to isolate their characters, or why some teen dramas have the characters reject cell phones on principle (Alyssa or James having a phone in 2017's "The End of the F***ing World" would solve most of their problems, which is why Alyssa smashes hers in the first five minutes and James basically says he views them as a cancer to society--if they had phones the story would be boring, so the writers took away their phones).
I also feel like people used to treat society differently "back then," i.e. Going Out was much more of a thing when there were 10 channels on TV and no one had cell phones, so you Went Out and had drinks & met strangers & interacted with general society to an extent im not sure we do anymore. So that experience is way more fun to write about in the 80s than today. (u can't see me but im seething with jealousy over ppl who were born in ~1965)
idk. im not sure I did a great job reproducing the zeitgeist of the 80s/90s in my fics, bc I wasn't there to have knowledge of what they were like. I got most of my presupposed knowledge about that time period from reading Calvin & Hobbes anthologies as a kid. oh well.
question: how do you find your research/sources? yours and dancing disasters' icemav fics are so inside baseball i love it, but how do you go about doing research?
I just read a lot & google stuff I don't know & am curious about. not that hard to start learning. and in terms of reading I've been interested in military history & milfiction my whole life. mostly related to the US army, actually--im extremely new to naval history and naval literature; all of that interest was driven by top gun. I've also been fortunate enough to visit a lot of the places I write about--ive been to Pearl Harbor a couple times & San Diego MANY times, for instance, and I've toured a few aircraft carriers and military bases. I've also finally bitten the bullet and kinda shifted my career path towards aerospace, so I've been learning a lot just by working in the aerospace & defense sector/spending a lot of time with people who do.
that's obviously not to say that I am somehow Educated in all this stuff. im pretty open on this blog about me being young & naive & wrong much of the time about how the real world works. so, you know, a lot of shit I just Make Up according to my preconceived notions of the military & the world.
here is my recommended military/navy reading list, some fiction and some nonfiction.
someone also asked recently if I had read anything good in the last 6 months--yes!! three new additions to my reading list: a) Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain. So goddamn good. If you have to read only one novel about the Iraq War, make it this one. It's more about America than it is about Iraq. b) Redeployment by Phil Klay. This one is a collection of short stories about Marines in Iraq, written by a USMC vet, talk about inside baseball. Crazy amounts of jargon in here, basically a "to-google" list. won the national book award which idk if it deserved, but it's good. c) No true glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle of Fallujah by Bing West. currently reading this one, really well done so far, talks a lot about how fucked the US strategy was in Iraq with Fallujah serving as a metonymy/case study for the war itself.
again... this is all mostly close-quarters-combat (infantry) literature, I really am not that interested in the navy/Air Force that much outside of top gun lol
though I did recently remember that in early 2022, before I was into top gun, I read "Wingmen" by Ensan Case, which is actually a gay US naval aviator romance set in WWII published in 1979! it's really authentic and kind of sad, obviously, since it was a 1940s navy gay love story published in 1979. I don't actually think Wingmen influenced how I wrote wwgattai or how I think of TG/TGM but I just remembered that I read that book in February 2022 and going "oh my god they were wingmen" so maybe you might find that book interesting.
went through all of your three fics and omfggggg they're by far the best topgun fanfics out there. no contest. are you still posting here? cuz i have a small question. If your maverick grew up in texas, wouldn't he have a southern accent? does he repress it? has ice ever heard him speak southern?
tbh it's all speculation and every source says that they HOPE cruise will return. considering cruise just announced he's moving to warner bros i think they're doing damage control and really hope they can do it because he's their cash cow. until cruise himself confirms it i don't believe it.
yeah im with you on this, a lot of people have been saying this which is good.
I actually believe a top gun 3 will never be made because you CANNOT reasonably convince people the f-35 is a bad plane for two movies in a row. So they have to use the f-35, but tom cruise will never agree to make the movie because there are no two-seater f-35s so they'd have to use CGI lol
*I wanna stress I'm not like Anti-topgun3... im just anti- creative bankruptcy for the sake of a profit incentive... which a lot of Hollywood seems to be engaging in these days. endless sequels & prequels to profit off people's nostalgia for inarguably better movies of the past.
I've tried to keep my criticism of TGM to a minimum on this blog bc it really is a good movie &I hate to be Such a Crank All the Time, but its exactly my criticism of TGM too. As a story, it literally just reuses the same themes and motifs of the first movie with a few character tweaks & modern-warfare set dressing. rebellious kid (only rooster goes slow and not fast) who got shut out of the Navy (which for recruiting propaganda purposes is the Most Desirable Place To Be) needs to connect with a father figure to get over the ghosts of his past and reach his full potential. okay. it's the same story. it's literally A New Hope versus The Force Awakens levels of "we've seen this all before."
like im racking my brain trying to figure out how they would possibly write a third movie with the available threads left to pick up... I hope tom cruise says "no thank you" and top gun 3 languishes in development hell because my only answer is "I think the story is gonna suck shit"
So Miles is pitching for a Top Gun: Rooster and I dont think we need a sequel tbh but if we do get a sequel to TGM what would do you think it would look like/you want it to be like?
i don’t care. the storys over.
Let’s do an indy 5/cars 3 situation (gotta keep the IP alive) where mav is in an old persons home with dementia and multiple replaced joints and divorced but somehow the navy still needs him and just him to train the new 20 year old female protégé (maybe amelia for tie-in bonus?) after rooster volunteered to fight in ukraine in 2022 and got shot down and killed a week into the war… And somehow it’s maverick and only maverick who gets behind the yoke to save the day (OMG Tom cruise wins against all odds again)
fun for the whole family and it makes a lot of money 🥳🤑
well idek what to say. like im actually speechless.
is there anywhere for mav's character to actually go? is he retired or not? is rooster a strong enough main character to build a story around? are we passing the baton or are we not?
So Miles is pitching for a Top Gun: Rooster and I dont think we need a sequel tbh but if we do get a sequel to TGM what would do you think it would look like/you want it to be like?
i don’t care. the storys over.
Let’s do an indy 5/cars 3 situation (gotta keep the IP alive) where mav is in an old persons home with dementia and multiple replaced joints and divorced but somehow the navy still needs him and just him to train the new 20 year old female protégé (maybe amelia for tie-in bonus?) after rooster volunteered to fight in ukraine in 2022 and got shot down and killed a week into the war… And somehow it’s maverick and only maverick who gets behind the yoke to save the day (OMG Tom cruise wins against all odds again)
fun for the whole family and it makes a lot of money 🥳🤑
well idek what to say. like im actually speechless.
is there anywhere for mav's character to actually go? is he retired or not? is rooster a strong enough main character to build a story around? are we passing the baton or are we not?
Would you ever consider writing about a different path Ice and Mav could take, one where they choose to leave the Navy and pursue a more open relationship and civilian life? Thinking it would be easier but maybe the sacrifice to their careers brings its own challenges?
(hi, jan 2024 me here, this was an ask that I answered when it was sent in in May 2023 & didn't post because I felt I actually answered it fictionally in the "icedad" one-shot the week after [and you can obviously see how these thoughts affected the writing of other pieces like "tremors & aftershocks"], but I still mostly agree with this take [though it's a little overgeneralizing] & I think it sums up a lot of my final "meta" modern-military-theory thoughts on ice & mav & their relationship, so im posting it now before I post the compacflt masterpoast)
see,… the thing is, i just… can’t see that happening!! i have no idea how to write that!!! Maybe i really do have a lack of imagination. But i can’t see that happening for a number of reasons. So short answer, no.
Long answer (and it’s long):
1. lame reason to start out, but it, uh, it’s canon that ice ends up at O-10 and mav ends up at O-6. not saying that im beholden to canon obviously (my mav ends up at O-7 and my ice ends up alive) but I do base my characterizations of them on the implications of the political struggles of both their careers so… taking away ice’s fourth star is basically starting from square one wrt my characterization of him. which is a lot of work. i could start from the beginning with a top gun 1986 ice who knows he’s gay—that would be a fun AU (i think other people than me have definitely done that better, though—I’m a one-trick pony). So if that’s what you mean then disregard the rest of this post. but if what you mean is a divergence from my existing work (i.e. homophobic/rank-climbing ice&mav) then… yeah, can’t see that happening, for further reasons below.
2. wrt my characterization of him: it’s based on a broad historical overview of armed service officers and the expectations of their careers. in my view, high-ranking officers aren’t after power—or maybe they started their careers wanting power, but somewhere down the line, it just becomes an expectation. if you do everything right and follow all the rules, you are expected by the institution to lead, whether you want to or not. That’s just the pipeline. at some point you start losing agency. which is what I mean when I keep saying ice doesn’t have a choice in advancing his career (besides the meta fact that this is fanfiction and canon demands that he have 4 stars lol)—high ranking military officers are continually and continually groomed for bigger and better positions; and the longer they spend in the military, the harder it is to leave that lifestyle for something else. And with ice’s canonical (and characteristically INTEGRAL, as I mentioned a week or so ago) refusal to rebel against the wishes of the navy as an institution, plus this historical expectation to lead placed upon the shoulders of excelling officers, I really do think ice is destined for four stars & nothing less, even if it gives him chronic depression. It’s his highest priority not because he wants it to be, but because…it just is. that’s how the institutionalized system of advancement in the military works. it just is. it has to be.
3. I mentioned in this post that I can’t ever see a foot in the door with them talking about their relationship unless maverick dies and is resurrected, and I feel the exact same way about them & their retirement plans. There’s a lot that ice and mav don’t talk about: the biggest one is obviously Goose’s death, the foundation of their relationship; but also their love for each other obv, what they did to rooster, AND their careers, which have to end at some point. Them talking about everything is totally inevitable, it was gonna have to happen eventually before they died, and I think one foot in the door MIGHT have been them eventually talking about retirement (someone sent in a prompt asking for this exactly & i am brainstorming it furiously) but before the Navy FORCES them to retire… i think they would studiously avoid talking about it. For a couple reasons: a) what does retiring with each other mean? living in the same house until they die together? hard to do if you’re just good friends. talking about retirement is tantamount to talking about Them. and b) what are they gonna do outside the navy? Ice has a lot of options, as I mentioned in the slider one-shot—general/flag officers are SUPER sought after in leadership/intelligentsia/management positions post service, so maybe if he were offered a crazy cool civilian position somewhere in San Diego in like the 2000s he would quit the navy for it… but what about maverick? I have no idea what a non-navy mav would do. Civilian airline pilot? Hoo boy. I think he’d hate that. I could maybe see emergency helicopter pilot, lol, or race car driver (i just watched days of thunder can you tell?) but none of the above offers the institutionalized honor the navy does (that, as a reminder, he *killed people* to obtain in the first place). I suggested his test piloting expertise would make him an attractive technical advising candidate to A&D companies like Boeing, LockMart, GD, etc. so that might be one option. But it might have been kind of a touchy subject for him before he racked up the expertise he’d need for those high-level civilian positions… the navy was kinda his only option. So they wouldn’t talk about it because it might hurt his feelings.
4. The biggest reason: again… open rebellion like rocking the boat by quitting the navy to be in an open long-term gay relationship, in upper mil brass ranks, and even retired upper mil brass ranks, just… isn’t done. And REALLY wasn’t done in the 2000s, when i think the scenario in this ask is positioned. And it’s not like “oh but whatever who cares about the navy, ice and mav are in love, they deserve to be happy no matter what, they should do what they want, fuck the navy…” no. Ice and Mav care about the navy. Clearly. Canonically. By necessity. The military requires cohesion and on some level repression of individuality & personal expression to FUNCTION, even when you’re retired. Yes, maverick certainly strains against that repression (which is why you Could spin top gun as an anti-military franchise if you were desperate enough), but he rebels through his ACTIONS (stupid plane maneuvers) not through his personal IDENTITY. his personal identity (headstrong overtly masculine white male pilot, whether gay or straight who cares) is NEVER challenged throughout the franchise (i.e. no one really challenges his masculinity specifically) & his personal identity does not POSE a challenge to the navy. Both he and ice in their outward-facing personal identities really fit in quite neatly to the navy’s overarching identity & contribute to the navy’s cohesion in a way that is favorable to both their careers and the establishment. Lack of imagination or not… i can’t see a universe in which Ice and mav would actively WANT to rock the boat and wreck the navy’s cohesion and their reputations for an open relationship and definitively rebellious personal identities, with the obvious caveat being Maverick’s death recontextualizing both their priorities (yes we’re in love AND we’ve finally proven ourselves to be ultra-capable officers regardless of our sexuality so no one has a license to judge us anymore etc.).
And also, they’re not enlisted seamen. Nor are they mediocre officers who have the luxury of fading into obscurity. Things are different when you’re that high in the ranks, and when your job publicly matters more. sorry, but even post DADT (probably until about biden’s election), an open relationship would end their careers. They might not be fired, but they’d never be promoted again. Too much of a liability getting subordinates to still respect them, from the higher-ups’ perspective, especially if there are other qualified candidates who fit the navy’s core identity better. Like—sorry. This is such a jaded oversimplification. But if you rock the boat like that (i.e. break the service’s united front to be individualistic in a way that does not match the service’s overarching identity), from the perspective of your officer peers, you simply are a bad officer. Being an open individual in a job where you are required to fit in and represent your service is not your job. You are not doing your job well. Straight-up. Even if you’re retired. I met US Army 4-star gen. David Petraeus (retired obv) in February—he led the successful-ish surge in iraq and Afghanistan in the mid-2000s—and he’s STILL a laughingstock for his disastrous affair with his biographer a decade ago, even after he retired from AD service. That’s what people remember him for, not the fact that he was one of our only successful commanders in any of our Middle East campaigns.
Something like that might be one of ice and mav’s worst fears—being known for their affair/scandal instead of the institutionalized honor they’ve fought and killed for. That kind of thing just Isn’t Done. It's bad taste. You have to keep it quiet. If you’re an officer representing the service, you have to represent it well & according to the service’s preconceived identity, even in retirement. (see, for another shitty example of "not fitting in" even in retirement, Lt. gen. Mike Flynn [his whole scandal is actually kinda geopolitically relevant to my fic if you squint lol] whom everyone fucking hates)
To summarize: i hope I’m not mischaracterizing your ask when i reframe it like this—would you ever write ice and mav without the institutionalized pressure to advance in rank and conform to institutional norms?
and yes, I would (and will if you ask—it looks like this: ice & mav meet & fall in love & it’s boring and fine. end of story), but I guarantee you someone else already has. I’m all about interrogation of institutional norms here. And i think until maverick dies & comes back from the dead, there is absolutely no *REALISTIC* incentive for ice & mav to leave the navy and/or have an open relationship. Like it’s just not possible. Idk how else to say it.
i won’t be deleting this blog or anything—still have a few things to post down the line (updated playlist, political masterpoast, sending out final print versions, etc.). But i think, after nearly 400,000 words all told, my time of content production for this fandom has come to an end.
this week, in addition to finishing all the writing for my top gun AU, i also received a research grant for my senior thesis and found out where in the world i will be studying abroad next semester. This seems like the perfect time for me to shift gears.
I’m signing off on my version of ice & mav and it was my privilege to see them off to happiness :)
Writing for this fandom has been such an incredibly gratifying experience & I will cherish the year-odd I spent with these characters for the rest of my life. And to everyone who interacted with me in any way—read my writing, commented, helped me out with research, kudos’d, sent in an ask or a DM, et cetera—i hope you know how much it has meant to me & how much it always will. i love you, i love you, i love you. And i wish the best of luck to you all in the future ❤️ and thank you again for everything.
took my two week break from opening any top gun-related word document. Was very relaxing. now starting to edit & repost chapters, in anticipation of printing out my final copy
every year-old typo i encounter makes me want to end it all i swear to GODDDD
