#trans tom iceman kazansky

[echoric]

trans iceman who is scared of needles so he asks the others to do his t shot for him

this is so canon in my trans iceman truthing heart </3

Goose knew first - he met Iceman in the Academy and with his Mother Goose tendencies, he was the first person to get under that ice cold exterior that Kazansky always put up. He noticed how Ice would never change in front of the others, how he always showered last and was the first to the locker rooms in the morning, already in PT gear and warming up before anyone else even showed up. There was one day when he woke up early, couldn't get back to sleep, and decided to go to the locker room to get an easy warm up in before PT would start - and he promptly had a shoe thrown at his head while Ice scrambled for his shirt. They had a talk, Goose was sworn to secrecy, and a few weeks later, Iceman appeared at his door with a vial and a question and Goose was more than willing to help.

Slider was second - he met Iceman fresh out of the Academy, but he had known about the infamous pilot for years before that thanks to Goose. He knew about the prickly exterior and the walls that would take patience to get through, but he wasn't put off by the glares and the icy attitude. They flew together, and slowly, that icy persona started to melt and Slider saw Tom peeking through. It was only a matter of time before they changed in front of each other, they bunked together after all. Ice told him to close his eyes, and he did - just thinking it was another one of the pilot's quirks - but when Ice told him to open his eyes again, the first thing he saw were the large twin scars on his chest. And Slider might've freaked out because he had no idea what they were, but once Ice explained, he held his hand out for the vial before Ice could even ask - he'd been through enough medical check ups after flights and missions to know that the man hated needles.

Hollywood and Wolfman were the next to learn - entirely by accident. They were messing around in the locker room at Top Gun after a hop because they were the first two back after getting shot down in almost record time, just throwing shit at each other and trying to smack the other with their towel. Ice and Slider are the next to in, both looking pissed and ready to kill - and Hollywood and Wolfman exchanged a single look before calming down their chatter. Ice opened his locker with more force than normal, and something fell out onto the ground and rolled over to Hollywood's foot. He tried to pick it up, but Slider was darting forward to grab it before he could, and Hollywood makes a face - "Dude, steroids are so bad for your heart, you're going to kill your career." Slider is about to tell him off when Ice stops him with a nervous glance, and Hollywood and Wolfman are added to the roster of people more than willing to help Ice with his monthly injection.

Sundown and Chipper never learn outright - but they have their suspicions. When a drunk Slider gets into a bar fight bad enough that the civilian ended up in a hospital bed and Ice ended up bailing Slider out of jail, there was a quiet understanding throughout the entire group. Some drunk prick making a snide comment about Ice's appearance was enough to set all of them on the defensive. Sundown and Chipper might not have known why, but they had their brother's back regardless. They noticed after that incident, Ice seemed to lower his guard a bit more around them.

Maverick was the last to know - and it was completely intentional. In fact, Ice was willing and hoping to go to his grave without Maverick knowing. The only reason he ended up learning was when Ice finally cracked and slammed him against the wall of their shared bunk room on a carrier. It was all heat and passion and years of built up tension crashing down at once around them, and it took only a few seconds for Maverick to rip Ice's shirt off - and then there was an icy chill colder than the Arctic ocean washing over Ice as he saw Maverick's eyes catch on the scars. Ice was ready to get told off, to get thrown out of their room, and dishonorably discharged from the Navy after so many years of careful work to purge any F from his files. But Maverick's hands were burning hot against the scars, tracing them with a concern and care that Ice had never felt before. They said the bare minimum amount of words so Maverick understood the situation, and then they didn't leave their bunk room until they were almost late for breakfast. None of the others commented on how they both carefully adjusted the collars of the flight suit - but money was definitely passed between hands.

[cannibalhellhound]

It's ✨done✨

I forgot to tape it down and it's wrinkly now but it's alright because it's taped to my sketchbook now >:D

The feathers are a pain

That's all I have to say

[daniel-maverickkk]

Hi Top Gun Fandom! I'm a Maverick cosplayer. I was recently at the festival :)

I made the helmet myself. It didn't turn out very well, but I like it

[enthyrea]

locker room behavior

based on this photoshoot

[sammythedogee]

pre-transition + icemav - pete mitchell

maverick is exhausted. sitting with a cold drink in his hands, ice freezes the soft layer of skin covering his shaking fingers.

“it can’t be.” he says to himself, mind drifting to his weekend.

they were all playing some stupid board game and maverick went straight for the male character, forcing goose to be the woman. it’s as it’s always been. his best friend didn’t push back, but instead gently chuckled, “he suits you, mav. maybe you’re destined to be a guy.”

the rest of the time, the group all referred to maverick as a man. they were joking, of course, poking fun at “mother” goose in equal measure. but, it made mav’s heart leap into his chest. it’s the same feeling he gets every time ice calls his name.

maverick’s elbows sit upon the sticky bar table, his shoulders hunched, chest minimized. it’s not a behavior he’s picked up on, but goose and ice have.

so, when he spotted maverick drowning in his own thoughts, completely curled over; he easily guessed what was on his mind.

“mav?” ice’s statement was far too quiet for maverick’s hazy mind to pick up on. instead, he slid his hand over maverick’s trembling.

maverick’s eyes snapped to ice’s, his fingers flexing under his gentle yet unwavering touch.

“ice?” he scans his blonde counterpart’s expression, searching for understanding.

“hey, man. you look really… off.”

man. every time ice talks to him, without fail, he uses some form of masc terminology; whether it be bro, dude, or man - he always makes a concerted effort to do so.

and maverick’s only just noticing.

“oh, no, just thinking. i’m fine.”

ice doesn’t buy it. he calls out maverick’s bullshit constantly, in the air and when he’s being a little shit. but this is different. far, far different. that troubled look in his eyes is something he’s only seen once before, and that was when maverick got so wasted he spoke about his father.

“mitchell, you’re a piss poor liar.”

he winces. sometimes, he forgets people genuinely understand and watch for his emotions.

“i can’t… i can’t talk about it with you, dude- i think, i think i’m fucked. fucked up. like, there’s something so goddamn wrong about me, i don’t know how to explain this without sounding fucking insane.”

ice’s fingers lace between mav’s. he’s never heard mitchell so shaken, his own heart is racing.

“breathe, mitchell. you can talk to me, i promise i won’t judge. no matter what you think it is that’s so wrong.”

“no, tom, you don’t understand. i could get fucking dishonorably discharged. i can’t- oh my god, i… what kind of woman…”

he’s trembling.

“maverick. baby, please, breathe.”

the endearment slips out before he can stop it. but lord, it doesn’t matter. not when maverick’s tears have escaped the confines of his eyes and dripped down his many-size too large t-shirt.

his watercolor eyes evade ice’s as the words spill from his lips, his tone pure terror.

“what kind of woman wants to be a man?”

AN:

it’s been like a year since i’ve written ANYTHING but jesus christ it’s been forever since i’ve hyper fixated like this AAHSJDOCPDKSKDLDL

i mean i now go to flight school because of these stupid movies and maverick is my biggest kin

anyways i’m probably going to write multiple parts of this even though there is no plan and the writing is poor quality but idc transmav + icemav makes me tweak

[im-sorry-what-ii]

tumblr i feel you might appreciate this

tiktok wont let it on the fyp page but i thought id post the original version to tumblr before i edit the "drugs" and "nudity" out of it

[foap-mactavish]

domestic icemav

Mav is always seen as this reckless, brave, outgoing, slightly arrogant man and that’s how everyone sees him. Everyone but ice. When he and pete are at hime especially after a long day pete will wrap himself up in blankets and go almost completely non-verbal only making grunts and whining noises when he wants something and he’ll curl up into Tom. He won’t let go. He’s the clingiest Mf on the planet when he’s tired and ice finds it adorable.

[k9effect]

An afternoon at Ice's

[Click for better quality, reblogs and tags appreciated]

[friend-lover-traitor-narrator]

Masterlist - Top Gun Fics

Please read the tags for each individual story!

(* contains smut as part of the story)

(** (mainly) smut)

ICEMAV

I Think We're Alone Now* (multi-chapter, on-going)

Like No Time Has Passed At All** (one-shot)

Next Time Then** (one-shot)

We've Got Tonight (one-shot)

The Man You Are (genderfluid!mav, one-shot)

You Can Be My Jerk-Off Material Anytime** (one-shot)

HANGSTER

Weekend Trip* (multi-chapter, complete)

Stupid Enough (one-shot)

Series: Californian Country Boys

Forever and For Always (one-shot)

No One Needs To Know (one-shot)

ICE X MAV X GOOSE X CAROLE

Ocean of Love* (multi-chapter, on-going, on hold until I feel able to write smut again)

MISC PAIRINGS & GEN

Flufftober 2024

[Last updated: 01/17/2025]

[blazingstar29]

trans mav wip bc i really want to post this fic but i won't be able to for a few weeks bc of uni

His birthday falls on a Sunday. This isn’t anything extraordinary but it means after he showers he pulls on his socks and shirt and boxers, but his jeans stay on the bed as he unravels a canvas bag. He perches on the bed and carefully draws the vile, making sure that there are no air bubbles before changing the needle. An alcohol wipe rubs the area clean.

[ukkie-pookie-1point0]

Hanging out with my friend and her brother was drawing with chalk, so I thought why not and joined him. (He looks a little wonky 😵‍💫)

And the angle that my friend saw

Extra drawing under the cut

The angle makes his face look extra weird so I just cropped it but there was text

"You have to wear sunscreen."

I know I yap a lot, but OML, I saw an aerial performance and thought 'top gun au. Now.' I need to touch grass. I enjoyed the cosi installment tho (science <33 (Nilered/Blue NEEDS to post another video) (the helicopter flying overhead kept distracting me))

I LOVE THE GLOBE OF DEATH⁉️ LIKE MAV AND GOOSE AS RIDERS WITH CAROLE STANDING IN THE MIDDLE??? My friend got to go in it was so cool.

I shouldn't be posting this much, but I draw quite a bit (I might just draw a few things and put it all in one post idk)

[airlocksandaviaries]

😳

Thank you, @decadentworld , for the idea. (inspired by these gum ads in this post)

[cannibalhellhound]

I've got the Transmasc Mav zoomies and I cannot be stopped

Ice and Sli are looking (dis)respectfully from a distance

[the-ace-with-spades]

A tiny little scene from way further in my trans! Bradley fic - chapter 14/15 o (sometimes I feel) like a monkey pilot, we're currently on chapter 5 - featuring Uncle Slider

For context, Bradley came out after a mental breakdown and reunited with Mav and Ice less than two months before this scene. tw: slight misgendering (one slip-up)

*

March 2013

It was a big day — Bradley had been asked by Maria to meet someone else from the family as his therapy homework and Uncle Slider was selected as the one to fulfill that assignment. Out of the whole family, it was just him and aunt Sarah that lived in San Diego, and only the two of them knew that, well, that Bradley wanted to be called Bradley now and that he’d come out in the worst circumstances possible.

At least Ice said he did know — he was the one to tell Slider when Bradley moved in with them and he hadn’t said more than he was a little confused but he’s okay when Bradley asked how it went. He still didn’t know if Ice didn’t tell him more because he wanted to protect him or if it was truly all the reaction he had from Slider. He hadn't talked to many people since he came out and even the people he did talk to were strangers who Bradley would usually either never see again or could avoid seeing again. Family seemed like an entirely different category, one that made him freeze and tense with dread.

Hopefully, by the end of the day, he’d still be Bradley’s uncle.

He and Mav had just finished kneading the dough for the ravioli they were making when the front door bell rang. Ice, who was just watching them from the other side of the kitchen island, let his book fall down next to the fruit bowl and walked to the foyer.

Ice and Slider talked in the foyer for a minute, tones too quiet to hear the words, before Bradley heard their footsteps and Slider's voice broke through the door to the corridor, “So, where’s the wayward son?”

Ice sounded a bit exasperated when he replied but Bradley could still hear lightness to his tone as he said, “In the kitchen with Mav."

He tried not to worry. Tried to take it as a good sign and not to have the worst case scenarios flash before his eyes.

He turned away, back to the kitchen island and the entrance, looking at his hands, still covered flour from the dough. He saw Mav's concerned gaze in the corner of his eye, but he only shrugged, trying not to worry him.

It all should be fine. Even if Slider didn't react well to actually seeing Bradley as Bradley, it wasn't going to be the end of the world.

Mav pinched the bridge of his nose, a sigh that could be only directed at Uncle Slider leaving his mouth. Bradley turned around.

First thing that caught his eye was a giant baby blue balloon, floating around Slider's head, the It’s A Boy! text in a darker shade of blue in semi-cursive.

Slider himself didn't look much different than the last time Bradley saw him in 2006, right before he retired from the Navy. He already had grating hair back then, now they were almost completely gray, there were a few more wrinkles around his eyes and he seemed to have lost some muscle from around his shoulders but he still mostly just looked like Bradley's Uncle Slider.

“Hey, kid,” he said, like he had always been. “I didn’t want to come empty handed but Shay is at a conference in LA and she’s the one who chooses gifts usually so… There was a shop next to the girls' school and I thought it would be, you know, fitting.”

Bradley hadn't been in contact with them when Slider and Sarah's second daughter was born — he had only heard about her from Ice, a couple of weeks ago when they tried to catch up on all the family matters he had missed in the years he was away.

“The youngest is six now, isn’t she? Sof, right?”

“Almost seven,” Slider replied, sounding quite proud. “Tells us to call her Sofia now, because she is too big for Sof. Well, unless you’re her Uncle Mav, then you can still call her Sof.”

“What can I say? Kids love me,” Mav quipped, right from behind Bradley.

“That’s because you’re a big kid yourself,” Ice supplied, rolling his eyes.

Now that he wasn't standing right behind Slider, watching him for any wrong moves or words toward Bradley, he had moved back towards the high chair on the other side of the kitchen island.

“He’s as big as a kid you mean,” Slider said, one hand making a little measurement gesture, cutting the air right below his shoulder, where the top of Mav's head would reach.

Bradley couldn't help it — he snorted.

Slider used the moment to step closer, pulling on the balloon's string, and handing it off to Bradley.

“Thanks,” he said. When Slider opened his arms, the same way he used to do whenever he wanted a hug from Bradley, his voice cracked as he added, “I’m covered in flour.”

“Come here anyway,” he told him and Bradley did, stepping into his arms. It had been a while but it also didn't feel any different — Slider was still the only person from their nearby family who was taller than Bradley, still would just wrap his long arms around his back and bring him close enough that he'd be sinking into his chest, put Bradley's face in the crook of his neck and say into the curls behind his ear, “You gave your folks quite a scare.”

“I know,” he whispered into Slider's shoulder.

“Good to have you here with us, buddy, really good,” he said and Bradley tried to soak in the moment, but at the same time not to put his dirty hands on Slider's nice black polo.

“Now, is any of you going to roll the dough for me or are you just going to stand there?”

Bradley let go of Slider, still not completely sure this day wouldn't become a disaster, but a bit more relaxed.

“I thought you finally bought him that pasta machine,” Slider said, mainly toward Ice as he took a step back toward the kitchen island.

“Oh, I did,” Ice said, with an accusatory tone to his voice. “Put it in the back of the cupboard right away and never used it.”

“My mamma didn’t need a fancy pasta cutter, I don’t need it either,” Mav said and it sounded like they'd had that discussion at least a couple of times. “Baby, can you roll the stuffing for me?”

“Yeah, just let me wash my hands again,” he replied, giving Slider one last glance over his shoulder as he moved to the sink.

Mav, satisfied now that Bradley was within his reach, turned to Slider with a glare. “What? If you’re not going to be useful, get out of my kitchen.”

Slider raised his arms and backed out, sitting down next to Ice at the other side of the island. Bradley could feel his eyes on him, following him all the way inside the kitchen but not adding anything.

Mav stepped next to him, bumping their shoulders — or his shoulder and Bradley's elbow, really — and asked close to his face, “You doing okay, baby?”

He turned on the tap, trying to gather his thoughts. “Yeah, I just—”

“I can still kick him out if you want,” Mav offered, way too eager. “In fact, I’ll take great joy in kicking him out.”

“You invited him,” he reminded.

“No, we invited him,” Mav corrected. “If it’s too soon—”

“I can’t live behind closed door forever, as much as I want to,” he noted because that was the truth. The past almost two months now, Bradley'd been seeing his parents and the healthcare professionals that were taking care of him and then almost no one else. At some point, he had to start living again, even if it was scary, being in the world and out and not in the safety of his parents house. Most of the time, he still felt a bit like a fraud, calling himself Bradley, telling people to use he and him when talking about, that he was guy — almost like he didn't deserve it until he looked the way people expected him to look.

“I know,” Mav said and he didn't seem any happier about it than Bradley, his eyebrows creasing as his hand reached to caress Bradley's cheek gently — he had flour on his hands, too. “I wish I could make the world a better place for you.”

“Thank you, Dad.”

“Promise I’ll kick him out if he says anything,” Mav added, giving his cheekbone a last swap with his thumb and then putting his hands under the running tap.

“I’m pretty sure that if he does, Pops is going to be the one who’d kick him out,” he noted.

They were both standing around, watching their interactions like guard dogs, ready to bite at any slide of hand, and Bradley felt almost okay with it.

Bradley washed his hands and dried it off on the nearby towel. Mav sent him a wink before stepping away, bending down to find the rolling pin somewhere in the mess of their corner cabinet.

Slider called out, louder than he'd been talking to Ice. “Hey, is there a chance you made enough that I won’t have to think what to make for dinner for the kids?”

Ice sounded exasperated again, shaking his head at him and Bradley smiled as he said, “You just came here to steal our food again, didn’t you?”

“Told you a hundred times, brother, cooking well is his only good quality, I might as well milk it.”

Bradley shook his head at the familiarity of the whole moment and said, “You’re in luck this time — we’ve already frozen the first batch.”

“Don’t let him win, buddy,” Ice quipped.

Bradley pulled up the sleeves of his hoodie, taking out the bowl with the spinach and ricotta filling out of the fridge. As he carried it to the counter, the free space on the shelf below the kitchen island, right next to the ravioli dough, he felt watched again. He tried not to pay attention to it, but Slider was suspiciously silent, eyes scrolling over Bradley's mostly flat chest, clad in a binder invisible under his hoodie, and going up to Bradley's military-regulation short hair. He'd been looking like that the past few weeks every day but suddenly, it felt inadequate.

“Since when do you like Dallas Cowboys, kid?”

Bradley didn't have to look down to remember what he was wearing — the blue Dallas Cowboys hoodie he stole from Jake when he left Lemoore. Bradley didn't know shit about football but he used to go to NFL games with Jake whenever Dallas Cowboys were playing and they were in the area, it was Jake's team and Bradley would always wear one of his t-shirt or sweatshirts to blend in with the crowd and, well, because Jake liked when Bradley wore his clothes and Bradley like to wear his clothes. The past four months, the hoodie had been a source of comfort in the situations that made him nervous, used almost as often as the blanket hoodie Mav bought him in high school.

He wasn't about to tell them he missed Jake or who Jake was or anything else. "Can't I just like football?"

“I thought you were a basketball kinda girl—boy—guy—Shit.” It was clumsy but Bradley would give him points for trying. When Ice elbowed Slider into his side, he added sheepishly, “Sorry, Brad.”

“Please don’t call me Brad.”

“Sorry,” Slider repeated, scratching the back of his neck. “I thought it was Bradley now.”

“It is,” he said. “I’m just trying to avoid all the Brad Brad jokes that will come with it.”

“Yeah, you did make your life harder with that name change,” he said and just as he finished the sentence Mav and Ice turned toward him again, glaring. “I meant—”

“I know what you meant, relax,” Bradley told him, somehow feeling the tension oozing out of him now that the first slip had been made. “Mav said my parents had it chosen for a boy, so…”

“That does sound like something Goose would choose,” Slider said, slowly, and Bradley almost laughed at how hard he was trying to avoid his usual speak-before-think mode. “You can always go by your second name. Plenty of people do.”

Yeah, that was not happening. “I think I will just stick with Bradley.”

“By the way, Ron would make a great middle name,” he added. Ice elbowed him again but he didn't seem to mind too much and honestly, Bradley didn't mind the turn conversation had taken — it was all good-natured and so casual that it had almost calmed down most of his nerves. "Simple, traditional, can't be confused with a female name, what's not to like?"

Mav huffed. “Kerner, don’t even try—”

“What? He had a second name before,” Slider cut in.

“The paperwork is done already, anyway, so you’re a bit late,” Ice pointed out.

Mac turned to him this time, frowning. “It is?”

“Ice took me to the courthouse this week, after—after the session,” he admitted. Ice went with him inside and did most of the talking with the court clerk when Bradley couldn't reply to the simple what is the petition you need for question without spilling his whole life history. “I filed the petition.”

“I don’t think we chose a middle name, did we? Did you put one down?”

“I did,” he admitted, not elaborating and hoping they would leave it at that.

He concentrated on taking out the ravioli filling and scooping it into balls

“What is then?”

He only glanced at Ice shortly but that was enough for them to realize.

“Oh,” Uncle Slider only said before his typical shit-eating grin made its place on his face.

Mav didn’t say anything but he stepped closer toward Bradley, his close presence more than words.

Ice didn’t move even a millimeter. He bit down on lip, blinking the wetness out of his eyes and asked quietly, “You went with—with Tom?”

“Thomas,” he corrected, just barely hearable. "It's Bradley Thomas Bradshaw now. Or will, when the petition goes through."

"It's a good one, baby," Mav said, giving his shoulder an approving rub, eyes a bit watery. 

“Not as good of a choice as Ron, but I supposed you can live with it,” Slider said and just like that, Mav turned to him and tried to hit him with the rag he was holding — he dodged last minute and Mav tried to hit him again, basically crawling over the kitchen island, until Bradley started laughing at them.

Ice was still looking at him, though, still speechless but with the corners of his lips quivering now.

[enthyrea]

watching the planes take off ✈️

based on this

[compacflt]

I just wanted to say as someone who has stumbled across your blog and has read your Wednesday wips and posts about anything topgun related that your thought process and consideration of mav and ice, specifically their political beliefs and relationships with their own identities, is honestly so impressive and cool. You have brought such realism and life to these characters which is just so refreshing to see. idk i just wanted to express how cool and awesome i think that is

Because of the thought into these characters does it make it difficult to like them or understand them if you have differing opinions from them? for me personally i feel like if i were to ever actually have a convo with ice or mav regarding identity politics i would actually start to lose my mind (like how one feels when your dad or fun uncle talks for too long at thanksgiving dinner). If it does make them difficult to like, does that make it difficult for you to write them sometimes?

oh yeah! i think, my ice i really empathize with & really love & really could get along with, once he grows out of the sexism of his teens & twenties, but my maverick drives me crazy. someone sent in an ask a while ago that was like “WHY is cyclone simpson your one true love??” And it’s because i too would absolutely hate maverick & hate working with him lol. people who are overly cocky & un-self-aware & a bit self-centered make me CRAZY. (narrator voice: compacflt is a hypocrite as all these things also apply to compacflt.)

Politically… It’s difficult to say. no one really wants to hear the intricacies of one person’s political journey, which is why i won’t give you mine, but suffice to say—since the start of the russian invasion of Ukraine, and my semi-concerted effort to learn more about the political landscape of modern warfare, my own personal beliefs have shifted a whole bunch. definitely aided in that shift by my top gun fic project that specifically aims to understand the conservative straight-passing male mindset as it relates to military matters… there are many end goals to a project like mine, but one end product is a filter you can take away and hold up in front of your eyes and see the world through it. When writing from the eyes of a conservative straight (passing) white man, your priorities totally shift. I had to write from the perspective of someone who doesn’t care about identity politics. Because they don’t! A core tenet of conservatism is very proudly not caring about that stuff, and being very annoyed when people (usually left-of-centers) make that stuff very visible and want you to care about it! “Don’t shove it in my face,” etc., etc. Don’t force me to care about this taboo, private thing I really don’t care about. It violates my freedoms, or whatever, to be forced to care—or even bear witness to—stuff that i don’t care about. Etc. And then, to be nominally a part of that community that you really, really don’t care about, and then to be told that you have to care about it because of your publicity… people asking you to be proud of something that has had a negative connotation for much of your entire life… that’s not a transformation that happens easily.

Jesus, I could write an essay about this. I have, several times by now in responses to asks over my blog. But there is so much that I could talk about. I think… I really worry that some of my writing falls into the first of the below categories:

I really try not to romanticize conservatism in my writing—I tried to show that ice and mav’s happiness is the price they pay for their conservatism. They’re actively choosing to be unhappy—but because they prioritize their honor over everything, due to EXTERNAL PRESSURES they cannot control, and which I think are often ignored in the fandom space for one reason or another. The fact of the matter is, in 99% of IPs, characters prioritize something other than their sexualities. It’s never Maverick’s personal identity that is at stake in either Top Gun or Top Gun: Maverick, because he has built himself so impermeably masculine that there are no grounds upon which to question his personal identity. He just isn’t thinking about it. He’s thinking about how to get into Charlie’s pants, how to win the Top Gun trophy, how to uphold his promise to Goose, et cetera. If he’s fucking guys on the side, it’s because he wants to and because hes maverick and he does what he wants without thinking about it—that’s the whole point of his character, from a story-construction standpoint. That’s his archetype. He’s a renegade maverick superstar who is both thoughtlessly brilliant and thoughtlessly dangerous. He’s thoughtless. His priorities are to survive and to look cool doing it, and that’s it. He is a savant in the Naval Air Force, where honor is your lifeblood, who feels he has been dishonored by his own family name, and who willingly joined the conservative post-Vietnam Navy right when/after Ronald Reagan was elected President, and who wears cowboy boots and who disrespects women to their faces, and who is eager to get into altercations with Soviet-Chinese-DPRK-X-second-world-country-coded-but-EXPLICITLY-Soviet-manufactured-Mikoyan-Gurevich-MiG-28s(-F-5s-painted-black)… I’m sorry. In my opinion, the conservatism is baked into him as a character. I find it extremely difficult to separate him from his conservatism, because in some ways his patriotic conservatism is his raison d’etre. IMO if you take that away from him, he ceases to exist.

Same thing with Ice and his unwillingness to openly rebel or go against the grain. That is his whole reason to exist in the story at all. I know that I’m saying this in a fandom space where the whole point is to change characters & put them in different situations (fanfic) but… in kind of a perverse self aware way, as in I know I sound ridiculous and pretentious, i guess i don’t really understand an impulse to change the core tenets of a character irreparably in fanworks. We are shown that ice always goes by the books in TG. Then we are shown that he achieves the fruits of that labor (four stars) in TGM. So he is rewarded for never rebelling, whereas Maverick, who always rebels (but NEVER in a way that challenges his personal identity), has stagnated in the ranks at full-bird O-6. And that’s Ice’s character. That’s what he’s there for in the story—he’s a tool to show us the value system of rank and prestige you earn by following the rules of the Navy. Why take that away from him? That’s his priority! Canonically, that’s his priority and reason for existence! And historically the way to achieve that priority is through conservatism.

And you ask me if it’s hard to like my ice and mav. Yes, but that’s not my choice. The movie already did that for me. They are not, I’m sorry, likable people. I am not a straight white conservative male writing about straight white conservative men to validate my own beliefs—I’m a queer AFAB person of color writing about straight white conservative men because I want to understand the limits of their conservatism. What they do and do not care about, and what it takes to make them care. And from what we are shown in TG… ice and mav would not care about ME. At all. And they would not want to be forced to care about me. Ice’s casual careless dismissiveness… “the plaque for the alternates is down in the ladies’ room…” mav following Charlie into the bathroom… turning the key in the ignition and driving away while pretending not to hear her… “what?? i can’t hear you! 🙉” … they do not care. They have no desire to care.

Again. Maybe I subscribe to a very very old-school and labored and pretentious ideology when it comes to writing… I know a lot of people write just to have fun. I do not. I wish i could, but I don’t. And when you’re not writing to have fun, you don’t have to like the characters you’re writing about. They’re nothing more than tools at your disposal to get your point across more effectively. No, I don’t like them! Of course not! My ice is cruel and cowardly and careless and hypocritical and subservient and weak, and my mav is demanding and dangerous and dismissive and oblivious and so, so, so unbelievably bitter.

And that’s what my story needed, to get my point across. So, shrug. My point was my priority. I don’t care too much about the characters themselves.

Re: icemav & identity politics. Part of hopefully selling this story is the attempt at empathy for the conservative male, to bring this discussion back to the top. Why write fiction at all if you’re not going to write about people different from you, and why write about people different from you if you don’t want to understand them? So… part of trying to understand them was to understand and have empathy for this shift in priorities. Conservative guys do not want to care about labels, or sexual orientations, or, God forbid, discussion of their gender identities. I can kind of see Ice tolerating it by the end… but, there are limits. Again, it’s supposed to be private. I think he’d chafe against getting labeled gay—he wouldn’t want to be called the first gay compacflt, or SECNAV, etc. He can’t say, “i slept with like a hundred fifty women before I even MET the ONLY man ive ever slept with,” because that’s like intensely private personal information!! No one deserves that information, but people still want to call him gay, even though in his head he really is not!!!! Again—from the conservative perspective, it’s a public imposition of left-wing, overly sexualized, too-neat labels and politics onto an area of life that has typically been kept private and respectable—I don’t agree with the conservatism, but I can at least empathize with it. Pre-Maverick’s death (pre-coming to terms with it), it would’ve been shameful & embarrassing to him; but even after coming to terms with it, it’s still not something he “takes pride” in. I think he thinks of it like this—most people aren’t proud of being straight. Like, it’s weird if you are. Same thing with being proud of being white, etc. Why be excessively proud of things you have no control over? Why not take pride in your ACTIONS—for instance, his career that he has actively sacrificed so much of his pride for? I can really empathize with that thought. I don’t necessarily agree, but I get it, especially in his professional circumstances, where he has so much to be professionally proud of, and yet people keep wanting him to publicly care about this private part of him he has no control over and can’t change.

Maverick though. I think he’d be actively hostile about talking about it in public. He Does Not Care. he does not want to care. It’s all an insult. They call him the first openly gay Ace cause he’s married to another man— “okay, but, like, I’m not. Stop calling me that. Neither of us are. Oh my god we have slept with so many women. Stop calling us that.” Ok then what do you want us, the press corps, to call you? First openly bisexual Ace? “No that’s worse!! That’s a word some teenager made up and doesn’t mean anything!! I’m sixty years old stop asking me to talk about this stuff im too old.” What do you have to say to LGBT kids who want to go into the navy? “😎👍 there’s a place for you etc etc. Let’s go back to talking about all the planes I shot down.” Maverick does what he wants without thinking about it. That’s the core tenet of his character. Very conservative. Don’t ask him to care too much.

Idk. No I don’t like them. But I understand them, if that makes sense. Like their conservative anti-label logic does make emotional sense to me. So that’s part of what I took away from this project, for better or worse… probably worse: I understand why conservatives don’t like the modern over-publicity of sexuality. They don’t care and they don’t want to care. And because they are small-C conservative, my ice and mav still don’t care lol. So, yeah. It doesn’t make them hard to write, because thats why I wanted to write them in the first place.