compacflt

[compacflt]

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.

#I actively avoid talking about the aids crisis as much as I can for instance #that is certainly A Can of Worms. #a massive omission in my fics to be sure. but... not one I want to touch. #these characters would be judgmental and homophobic about it I fear. #btw I stole a bunch of stuff from teotfw for my fics #Carole asking ice if he actually wants maverick or if he just goes along with things is directly ripped from s1e02 #favorite tv show of all time #top gun #edts notes #from Calvin and Hobbes I gather most people in the 80s were obsessed with hostess snacks like Twinkies etc. #and dieting consisted of chainsmoking cigs on the front porch #bloom county was also a truly informative comic strip re: my 1980s cultural education #just the way characters like opus/Steve/binkley talk for instance #people in the 80s just talk different from the way they do now #fun to try and replicate even if I can't put it into words #my god I love bloom county #my birthday is tmr I will finally be old enough to legally drink in the US 😋 #thank u for the ask 🥺

[compacflt]

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.

#dancingdisaster's 'men like us' Directly inspired wwgattai and is the only other icemav/TG fic Ive ever read so I owe them a lottt #that fic opened my third eye as to 'omg what if ice lived' & then 'omg what if maverick died & ice never told him he loved him' #leading to my fics #thanks for the ask! PLEASE read billy Lynns long halftime walk #if for no other reason than its the best book I've read in 2024 and im already 12 books deep into 2024 #its so well written...... should be on the shortlist for the best great American novel...... #a scathing indictment of the American christian conservative.... mmm I eat it up good soup #top gun #military history #guys I just found out yesterday that my ex whom I haven't talked to in 2 years has been stalking my twitter & #has seen me gushing about my gay top gun fanfiction #well he shouldn't have stalked my twitter ... genuinely insane behavior this is why I ended things #love men

[compacflt]

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?

not the same thing

#to be fair: I have not ever stepped foot in Texas (I am a coastal liberal Elite). so im making this up. #but I have met many ppl from Dallas and they sound like me (Californian/hollywood “American” accent) #maverick is from Dallas because: #1. Dallas patch on his g-1 flight jacket (this is the most conclusive evidence imo) #2. Dallas Mavericks basketball team #3. tom cruise's p-51d/f-6k was originally built in dallas which is good metaphorically #I feel like there was a fourth reason at some point but I forgor 💀 #the weed smoking scene is the most poser thing I've ever written and I've written a lot of poser shit #makes me fuckin laughhhhh to read it again omfg #written before I remembered that active duty personnel have to take drug tests periodically #thats what being the base captain is good for! 'ehhh lets skip me this month...' #I am not really still posting here unforch #am slowly updating/editing wwgattai chapter by chapter on ao3 tho. have added like 7k already 💀 #pete maverick mitchell #tom iceman kazansky

[compacflt]

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 I am anti top gun 3 actually. #like... they're not writing a third movie because they have another good story to tell. that's what's insulting about it. #they're writing it bc its gonna make a lotta money. just like tgm. #you guys are right in that it may just be incentive for cruise to stay which is understandable because he's tom cruise 😍 #but from a creative perspective it just makes me :((((((( #like regardless of if the movie actually gets made or not it just feels like a sad hail mary move on behalf of these giant studios #luckily the movie will never be made bc of the f-35 thing #unless... Lockheed releases the NGAD... #top gun 3 becomes an advertisement for 6th gen air defense #?

[compacflt]

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 🥳🤑

#I spent some time crying about this news last night #then went to the great jailedamanda on twitter this morning and was reassured this is not confirmed to be happening #so we good now #it is lighting one hell of a fire under me to finish these edits though is2g

[compacflt]

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 🥳🤑

#all I can say is it will make a lot of money; and good for them. #its 11pm here on the west coast. I will be thinking about this all night.

[compacflt]

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.

#which is like the whole point of my fic right. this is exactly what im trying to say with the story as a whole #these are flawed institutions stuck in their ways and ice as an officer REPRESENTS that flawed institution stuck in its ways #until real life (maverick dying) gets in the way and makes him reevaluate his priorities #and the truth is—his 1st priority (loving maverick) is absolutely incompatible with his 2nd priority (advancing his naval career) #for the reasons listed above #so he quits! #but just because he quits doesn’t mean he doesn’t still represent the navy! that’s the curse of officership #per the slider oneshot: You can’t ever retire once you get any stars. #unfortunately in a realistic world Ice really DOES owe the navy his discretion. that’s how it works. #tom iceman kazansky #pete maverick mitchell #top gun #top gun maverick #icemav #asks #edts notes #the thing with petraeus though is that his affair was notable bc he leaked a bunch of classified info to her #so not the best example but it was still cool (in like a oh you’re a historical figure sense) to meet him so I’m bragging abt it #(see tweet I just added) #additionally: the military is changing! in this universe it would be young upstart officers like rooster/hangman who contribute #to the liberalization of military officer culture! #but that kind of change Is Not happening in the 50s-60s cadre of upper level officers. At all. Ice included. #anon let me know if this wasn’t what you meant in your ask. #& feel free to disagree/argue with me this is just my view #lol the DOD just banned drag shows in the military #^ these tags are 7 months old now

[compacflt]

well… That’s all she wrote, folks.

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.

#im gonna go grow up now. #see you in the adult world hopefully #off on the solitary process of editing #can’t promise i will be answering asks or DMs more frequently than 'sporadic' but i will try my best to answer comments on AO3 again #& my friends in Europe here i come!!! #onto original writing projects again ❤️

[compacflt]

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

#found a kazanaky. struggled not to immediately k*** ****** #you guys have to TELL ME this shit #i know there are hyphen issues & italics issues on AO3 that is an AO3 problem #but also sooo exhilarating to finally rewrite some very very old scenes the way they SHOULD be written #now that i know where everything’s ending up #just adding that last little 2% #it’s so fucking cathartic #rewriting some scenes from august 2022 just that little bit better #it’s like watching my informal & formal writing educations meet & exchange notes. just so cool. #taking what I’ve learned & reapplying it #fixing research fuckups on the way #will be rereleasing chapters as i finish editing them. new prologue is up #as is a new chapter one #as is now a new chapter two (which I realize is 3 on AO3) #obviously not a call to action. just letting u know

[compacflt]

hi! im learning so much from your blog and its endlessly fascinating to me, im not american so i knew next to nothing about the us military before getting into tg (still dont know that much but. more than before), i never cared about or defined myself by us political terms but now i really want to know and understand the tg characters and its fascinating to me how much politics is a part of that, so thank you for sharing your views on that on here, id be lost without them!

(i havent read your fic yet because idk if im emotianally ready for it yet but when i do. im sure its gonna be great)

haha I do sort of worry that I’ve made top gun too political. I think I’ve always just been trying to come to terms with the fact that… top gun wasn’t really made for me.

I saw Top Gun: Maverick for the first time in a movie theatre in rural southern Oregon…. Which, if you’re not American/didn’t know, is a part of the country characterized by Jesus-loving gun-toting “patriots.” The theatre was a full house. Everyone loved TGM. It’s NOT an apolitical movie. It pushes a WWII-era narrative about the “American underdog” military that appeals to a certain subset of the population: the military deserves more resources because our heroes are disadvantaged on the battlefield (F-18 vs SU-57), though of course in real life no more than a dozen SU-57s have actually been produced, and American fighters… don’t engage in dogfights anymore. Cain was right, no matter how much TGM wants to sensationalize the adventurism of real life pilots: drone warfare is making extinct manned fighter jets. TGM is geopolitically out of date. —And whether we like it or not, it is straight-up recruiting propaganda. The main emotional thrust of the movie is that we (audience) are supposed to sympathize with Bradley, who wants nothing more than to Join The Navy. We are supposed to be mad at Maverick (and later, conveniently, our scapegoat Carole) for preventing Bradley from Joining The Navy. The story of TGM does not make sense if the Navy isn’t the most desirable place to be. Top Gun: Maverick isn’t just recruitment MATERIAL; fundamentally it is a recruitment STORY. I feel like that’s an important metatextual aspect to engage with & acknowledge.

I’ve said elsewhere on my blog, the target audience for TGM is Republican dads of teenage boys: men who were teenagers when the first Top Gun came out, and have that nostalgia for a more dangerous/more exciting military, and are in the position to influence their sons to join up. The Navy would not have let Tom Cruise et al rent their $20,000-an-hour-operating-cost airplanes if that weren’t the case. Top Gun wasn’t really made for people like me.

Obviously how people in fandom engage with the source text is their decision. But engaging with Top Gun & Top Gun: Maverick is to engage with the Reagan-era reactionary, hawkish Cold War foreign policy that inspired Top Gun (the 1981 Gulf of Sidra incident really springs to mind—it would’ve been in the minds of many people watching Top Gun in 1986), and then the subsequent NOSTALGIA for that time period that inspired Top Gun: Maverick. They’re not apolitical movies at all; they have an agenda. It’s good to take their agendas seriously.

I hope if you read my fics you enjoy them 😊

#this is my last answered ask for a while #I do a lot of handwringing #there’s a reason i don’t tell irls i write top gun fanfic #it’s a conservative-coded IP! #I’m not telling people ‘you should write political fic’ #but i AM telling people it is good critical practice to understand/take seriously the politics of a source text before you transform it #in fandom. #fun military movies are still fundamentally military movies. #top gun #top gun maverick

[compacflt]

sorry if youve already talked about this but do you have any views on Goose's christianity? I assume with the cross he wears and Carole referencing him going to church that he is christian, im fascinated by how that might affect his character but im not religious at all, i was raised atheist in a mostly atheist country, so the fact that the tg characters might be caught me by surprise, i know thats not statistically correct but i just assume people arent religious until proven otherwise. feel free to speak on this topic in regerds to fhe other tg characters as well or to disregard this ask completely if it doesnt interest u

yeah. Americans were more religious in the 1980s than they are today. By like some order of magnitude. 90% of Americans were Christian in 1986. And the military tends to be more religiously conservative than the general population. So, I don’t mean to correct you, but the more statistically accurate assumption would be to assume that [X American character] is Christian until proven otherwise.

On the other hand. Characters’ relationships with religion is one of those things that is so personal, it’s completely useless to headcanon. it’s like music taste in that way. Goose outwardly presents himself as a Christian & also makes passing references to cheating on his wife. That’s like one of the 10 main things God told you NOT to do. (check out a little thing called “exodus 20:14.”) So it’s pretty useless to infer any relationship with religion because everyone treats religion differently, and goose doesn’t sit us the audience down and explain the exact kind of Christian he is.

Whatever. He’s a dude in the Navy of the 1980s. Religion comes secondary to dudehood. People can be (and frequently are) hypocrites. That’s what makes people so interesting.

There’s this great military line: “There are no atheists in foxholes.” Your moral code gets a little screwy when you’re constantly facing death or the prospect of death.

I think it’s okay not to shy away from the complexity of these characters. You can let Goose be a complex person who is statistically likely to be a conservative Christian who cheats on his wife sometimes and/or lies to her about it. That was, like, a commonly accepted male archetype in the middle of the 20th century. Those guys existed. Top Gun is a military movie. It confers complexity! That’s what military movies do! It’s okay to let bad people be bad people. Their emotional beats can still hit just as hard.

#idk if you’re the person who put the goose stuff in the tags of one of my previous posts about this #but if you are—it’s okay for goose & Carole to have a complicated relationship. #many people in military marriages—hell marriages in general—do. #she can still love him #he can still love her. #he can still be a good dad (again also he is forward deployed from his family so not entirely sure how good of a dad he is from afar) #how much of rooster's life was goose (deployed navy pilot) actually THERE for? #good dad in absentia? #anyway #people are complicated #& often hypocrites and often willfully ignorant #and yes goose is still a 'good character' whom we are supposed to mourn when he dies #it was the 80s. #nick goose bradshaw #top gun #Carole bradshaw

[compacflt]

A very small ask. Just to satisfy my curiosity. In Simpson's chapter, an Admiral Halsey pops up very briefly. Is this a nod to "Bull" Halsey or just random dude with random name?

Both.

Also a reference to one of my most favorite Ice/Mav/Bradley songs which is "Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey" by Paul & Linda McCartney. And I believe THAT song is a reference to Bull Halsey.

but jeez Louise it's the most Uncle Ice/Admiral Kazansky song ever...

#this song post pulling rooster's papers. ugh oof ouch mm #uncle ice! uncle Albert! admiral Halsey! admiral Kazansky! good grief its perfect #in my WWGATTAI playlist this is the song that plays when uncle ice is INVITING rooster to his compacflt promotion ceremony #which is why admiral halsey is at ice's promotion ceremony. #many of my story choices are based on my playlist #edts notes

[compacflt]

this is a bit of an ask inspired by another ask (and also ridiculously silly) but what’s the boys’ relationship with penny like in the future?? i loved the little snippet of her at bradley’s wedding and ice trying to figure out if she’s a threat or not (and then maverick coming back from dancing and saying he couldn’t stop gushing over ice….ugh!!!) but do they become good solid friends? I like the idea of them expanding their circle now that they can trust more people…even if one of those people are one of maverick’s exes

additionally: do her and ice ever talk about their shared experiences (not sex, ice would probably keel over and die, but just…having a relationship with mav)? the thought of penny cornering him is ridiculously funny to me. or maybe they never reach that point of comfort 🤷‍♀️ i just need to know if she ever takes them both sailing and ice gets a chance to laugh at mav on a boat

[also, in all sincerity, I have an unhealthy amount of things to say about this series and I’m a bit sad it’s over, but I love everything you’ve done <3 I could compliment it for days on end and probably never run out of things to say]

ice to Penny at mav’s birthday party sometime over the last five years: Hey! Good to see you again :) thanks for coming …

Penny, apropos of nothing: so.,. weve never talked one-on-one… but. You and i have both been inside Pete Mitchell at some point ?

ice:

#this is just my ice gif #Penny pegs! #heatwavering i wish you nothing but good days and love for the rest of your life smooches smooches smooches #to answer ur question honestly i don’t see ice & Penny bring anything more than polite acquaintances #and it’s clear mav didn’t make much of an effort to seek her/her friendship out #between movies #so i don’t really see them being good intimate friends #But i do see ICE AND CHARLIE totally yukking it up over ‘dating maverick memories’ #’does he still drive off on his motorcycle when he gets upset?’ #’oh yeah. haha. whoa. and pretend he can’t hear you…?’ #’oh god i used to hate that. better you than me Mr. Kazansky. better you than me.’ #pete maverick mitchell #tom iceman kazansky #penny benjamin #icemav #top gun maverick #asks #Charlie at least is involved in aerospace/mil aviation so there’s a lot of connection there #Penny is (not to say ‘just’ but) just a bartender/navy nepo baby

[compacflt]

Do you ever think about how rooster probably had to walk past that poster of ice and mav shaking hands when he was at top gun the first time cause like

well ackshually top gun (navy fighter weapons school) moved out to NAS Fallon in Nevada after the USMC took control of NAS Miramar in 1996 (2006 in my timeline) so i don’t think he would’ve seen it there

but during training for the Dagger mission at NAS north island… the first time, Rooster was probably totally blindsided by it—made him stop dead in his tracks. Jesus. Who put that shit here. Exposing them in the light of day. Total bullshit. Then: “eugh.” And every time after that he just squared his shoulders & walked past & refused to look.

Every time MAV walked past it he probably hesitated & smiled. That’s me & my baby, that’s me & my tomcat, et cetera. oh my god we used to be so YOUNG. augh. look at us. —But can’t get caught staring, have to move on quickly. He has that picture in his wallet anyways. There will be time to look at it later ❤️

#TGM scriptwriters wisely moved the NFWS back to San Diego because (no offense) Nevada sucks #no beaches upon which oiled-up movie stars can grapple half-naked over nerf footballs in the sand #and you know nostalgia etc etc #hondo watching mav heart-eye the handshake poster: are you guys good? ☺️ #Mav: oh yeah we’re good 🥰 he’s still pissed at me cause of the darkstar but we’re good 🥰 #(turning to the compacflt portrait) god Kazansky would it kill you to smile more than once a decade #this fucking guy am i right #hondo: haha yeah (i am 100% getting fired for ‘this fucking guy’ing the commander of the pacific fleet) #pete maverick mitchell #tom iceman kazansky #top gun maverick #icemav #bradley rooster bradshaw #that photo just being there in the hallway takes me out every time lmao #who PUT that shit there

[compacflt]

If you want, and only if you want to, could you explain about making Logistics a big part of Ice's career path? Not only did fit so well with your Ice's characterization, it was just so neat I've made it my HC for Ice's career path.

yes!

I got REALLy deep into the defense policy weeds in this post so I’m putting a cut to save people’s dashboards

1. when i was rewriting chapters 8 &9 last winter i did literally the bare minimum of research about the current set of high-level officers. the commander of the pacific fleet at the time had previously been the director of pacific fleet logistics ordnance & supply. So that was easy to yoink. a proven chain of succession.

2. but also: it fit ice’s (or his alter ego admiral Kazansky’s) neat, orderly, effective, collected, strategic characterization. And as professional tactics go, there would be no better promotion for a high-level officer looking to take over the fleet than DFLOS. understand the fleet by the numbers, you comprehensively understand the fleet.

3. In terms of secret-keeping logistics, ice is supposed to be kind of the best. like, because of his logistical thinking, he & maverick get away with it. Or that’s how I would’ve written it if I were a little smarter. Obviously in practice a bunch of people find out so it’s not great. but the navy AS A WHOLE doesn’t find out.

4. The field of military logistics is rigorously bureaucratic, boring, soulsucking, selfdefeating, notoriously corrupt, and yet entirely necessary for the military to succeed at any level (in the very first draft of WWGATTAI i included a famous US marine corps maxim that most people have heard at some point: “amateurs talk tactics. professionals talk logistics.” but that was literally the only good thing about the original chapter 6 which got entirely rewritten a month after i published it). So logistics as a field of specialization fit in perfectly with my secondary character thesis that rising through the boring bureaucratic ranks of the Navy sucked all the humanity & will to live out of ice one day at a time.

a couple related interesting things that I’ve never talked about on this blog & might never get the chance to again:

a) ice canonically joins the navy as a fighter pilot & ends his career as a glorified bureaucrat. that sucks. obviously the struggle to rise in the ranks is a notoriously cutthroat, political, sleazy business (you do not get to the top of the United States Navy by being nice to people), but i would also not be the first person to say that—for exemplary officers—leadership is an EXPECTATION that can counterbalance someone’s natural drive to excel, if that makes sense. You get promoted because you’re good at something (flying), but you get promoted away from the thing you were good at. There is an extent to which you have to fight for a promotion—but there is also an extent to which commanders above you pick you for the job, suck you up along the pipeline. Loss of agency—a major major component of joining the military—does still apply to upper-level officers.

B) to that end, i am reminded of one quote from Todd Schmidt’s 2023 book “Silent Coup of the Guardians: US Military Elite Influence on National Security.” This is an Army training & doctrine commander speaking: “the military has a lot of two- and three-star senior leaders that were confident, charismatic commanders at the O-6 level. But that’s the end of the story. One in fifty, maybe one in a hundred, truly have what it takes to operate successfully at the strategic level and make a real difference for their service. The problem is that they all tend to think that, since they have stars on their shoulders, they’re the one.” —I’ve been writing ice as “The Chosen One,” the officer unicorn, for two reasons: one, it provides him cover for his illegal relationship (and also asks an interesting chicken-egg question: does he get away with his rlnship because he’s so good, or is he so good JUST to get away with his relationship?); and two, he’s “the chosen one” in canon, i.e. he already has four stars in canon: canonically he is not a mediocre officer. But most officers (cough cough maverick) are not cut out for high-level leadership.

C.) in Thomas E. Ricks’ book “The Generals,” Ricks argues that (at least in the Army) mediocrity in the general/flag officer ranks is unfortunately by design. In WWII, if you were a mediocre officer, you got relieved! You got fired! It’s part of why we won: merciless culling of the general officer ranks! But between WWII and Korea, officer relief began to be associated with shame & wasted resources. Mediocre officers got promoted anyways. The military elite pipeline sucks mediocrity up the chain of command. Ricks blames this issue for (at least the Army’s) shit leadership in every post-WWII war, including but most especially Iraq and Afghanistan. There’s no penalty for mediocrity. That in turn reflects on military strategy (mediocre strategists at the helm) & the outcome of every military foray (mediocre outcomes).

D) additionally. There’s a whole neverending debate in the field of civil-military relations (an extremely interesting field of study btw) about the corporatization of the military—lots of high-level talk over the years of “running the military like a business.” If you get kinda into defense policy like me (am i still antimilitary? Idk! but i CAN easily tell you i am against the navy’s littoral combat ship program! It sucks!) then you will know that the navy is struggling right now on a lot of different fronts (procurement [shipbuilding esp. is a disaster—ford-class carriers are under budget though 👍🏽], recruitment, theatre prioritization, general preparedness, readiness against major adversaries [China in particular]). Simply, the navy is pretty mediocre at the minute. I talk a big game about ice being COMPACFLT & SECNAV, but if those are true, & if he “exists” in our current timeline, or even canon timeline (COMPACFLT in 2020), then he’s complicit in a lot of why the navy is sucking ass right now. He didn’t do his job very well. LOL. So, because I love (especially my version of) ice too much to see his legacy suffer, I am stating for the record that my timeline is a different timeline where ice saves the navy from itself and fixes all its issues & solves all its problems & makes it the pride of the armed forces & the tip of the spear of American defense :) because I said so

E.) unrelated but important. It sounds obvious but it must be said. Ice dies on the job in TGM canon. To the extent that in earlier drafts of the script, not-his-sister-Sarah even points out to maverick that ice is still active duty, in the same breath as she tells him ice is sick again. (A wise move to remove that line.) ice does not resign his commission. Ice does not retire to spend time with his family at the end of his life. Ice dies as commander of the pacific fleet. He dies on the job; he dies FOR the job, bureaucratic as it is. If you were wondering why I wrote ice so dormantly suicidal, it’s because canon (i argue) has made it clear that—since the second ice signed up to be a fighter pilot during the Cold War to the second he died active duty—ice has ALWAYS been ready and willing to die for his honorable Navy career.

#so imagine what would have happened had he been publicly dishonored 😶 #It’s also why i interrupted his SECNAV tenure with his cancer #to pay respects to compacflt Ice having the same thing happen to him #my Ice is built different tho. it doesn’t kill him #he retires to spend time with his family ☺️ #unlike selfish asshole canon ice ‼️🤬 #/s #this post gets DEEP into it but i find this stuff sooo interesting #got really into defense policy & missing the forest for the trees #i will admit that #military bad? yes but. #but defense policy so interesting anyway. #tom iceman kazansky #top gun #top gun maverick #icemav #edts notes #asks #last post of the night

[compacflt]

Thank you thank you thank you so much for sharing your writing with us - I really have enjoyed every word!! Seeing the edges of Ice and Mav's wedding was lovely, but I wasn't expecting them to have invited VIPER of all people. Can I grab a full guest list of the people who you think they would have wanted there to bear witness to the legal proof of their relationship?

they invited viper for the meta reason of “in my fanfiction he basically got ice & mav together & then i kinda forgot about him as a character when he was their friend & coworker at miramar for over a decade oops” & also i think age gaps closing as you get older is super interesting… viper not being mav’s dad figure anymore cause they’re both old as shit… they’re just pals now… drinking buddies… the earth is healing…

i am still secondhand embarrassed for ice & mav actually having a wedding, seems super out of character, i only made them invite their friends because it was the climax of the friendship arc in Slider but imo it otherwise doesn’t make any sense, the wedding would’ve been actually excruciating to write in any detail

but here’s an off the cuff wedding invite list sure

slider, sarah (😏), Cougar, sundown, hondo, rooster, hangman, Hollywood, wolfman, chipper, [it’s been so long since I’ve seen top gun i forgor the other pilots’ call signs so add your favorite background character here], viper, rear admiral chester cain for the meme (he RSVPs no), extremely select members of ice’s staff (COS e.g.), a couple of mav’s friends if he has any (unlikely)… Penny? no. she’s an ex. it would be weird.

#there’s a lot of shitlib lib shit in extras part two #ice & mav having an actual wedding included #this is due to me writing the majority of it during or directly after my Washington DC internship #& feeling incredibly hopeful about the liberal state of affairs #😐 #then october rolled around and… #anyway my politics wrt this project change weekly; aftershocks is especially shitlibby #you all are watching my politics develop in REAL TIME #like a bug under a microscope #anyway i still don’t even know where their wedding actually took place #home?? downtown?? #no idea. begging you as the reader to fill in the blanks because i was cringing the whole time i was typing #pete maverick mitchell #tom iceman kazansky #top gun #icemav #asks #edts notes

[compacflt]

I'm so happy to hear you will still be active! Your content is my current hyperfixation. Would you be willing to write something in which Rooster is declared KIA or MIA during his estrangement with Mav and Ice? Or maybe even after they have reconciled? Very curious to see what outliving yet another Bradshaw would do to them. Whether you want Rooster to stay dead or be found alive and brought back is up to you! End it how you want I am just a fan of the way you display emotion in your characters while still keeping them canonically in character.

Again feel free to ignore this ask if you had rather not write it, I love your work and think you are awesome!

oh god that might literally kill me 😭😅

They’re super far buried in my blog, but I did write two “Bad Endings” this summer

This one is where Ice & Mav stay broken up after ~2002 (pulling rooster’s papers, Carole dying & related aftermath)

And this one, which might interest you, is where Mav & Rooster stay dead after the TGM mission & ice (never having told Maverick he loves him) has to come to terms with the rest of his life alone

(which i think is very fun to compare to the good ending which is now on ao3)

and to cleanse the palate, another version of the good ending :) ice being dad-shaped

#just in case you might have missed these! #pete maverick mitchell #tom iceman kazansky #icemav #top gun #top gun maverick #bradley rooster bradshaw #um but i will add it to the list of prompts i might probably won’t get to at some point #thank you for such a sweet ask 🥺