Regulus: *writing poems*

Sirius: Are you writing sad boi poetry again? Just talk to him!

Regulus: You told me yesterday to not talk to him.

Sirius: Well now you’re writing sad boi poetry so I take it back!

Regulus: It’s not sad boi poetry, it’s literature. Leave me alone.

Sirius: That’s what someone who is writing sad boi poetry would say.

“what’s your dream job?” none I want to feel alive

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.

ngl atac disservice is the true key for integration and everyone getting along in this essay i will

Just thinking about how absolutely brilliant Jayce Talis is. How in love he is with magic and science. How much he wants to help people. How sure he is he can because he wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for the arcane.

When his voice cracks and his hands shake and you can tell how much he believes it with his whole soul when he says “You have no idea how beautiful it is.”

i literally need there to stop being situations circumstances events developments complications and happenstances. for the fucking love of god

thinking about my Tokyo Ghoul au I made for Danganronpa. It was meant to be kind of its own thing, not necessarily doing THH and not necessarily copying the plot beats of Tokyo Ghoul. Either way Makoto takes Kaneki’s place kind of, mainly bc when I read the opening I could not stop thinking about what supernaturally bad luck Kaneki had. And the way Kaneki ended up being the “bridge between two worlds” and represented justice and a means to an end for BOTH sides at different points gave me ‘Ultimate Hope’ vibes. At the same time Kaneki could EASILY be replaced with Hajime due to the conspiracy that Kaneki’s accident was done on purpose to basically experiment on someone to see if they could create the hope they needed. Only reason I didn’t jump to it is bc back then I was sticking Makoto in any scenario I wanted AND there’s another Tokyo Ghoul character that fits Hajime’s story. Anyway. I wanted to toy with the idea of someone who values life and helping others so deeply as Makoto being forced to do horrible things or else lose himself entirely. Becoming something you feared and only viewed as a monster until they revealed themselves to be people, but still horrified to find yourself in the middle. I think Makoto would have a unique reaction and I think he’d lean much more towards self sacrifice and helping try to get both sides to see each other’s humanity much faster than Kaneki did or Hajime would. But he’d also be ashamed and scared of what he’d become and desperate not to hurt anyone, which would be a disaster in the making as the longer a Ghoul goes without eating a person, the more beast like and unhinged they become. It’s not ALL that much different from a vampire au save the fact that there’s no option to just. get a little blood from a living person and leave them just slightly woozy or raid blood bags from donations. You HAVE to seriously injure someone or outright kill them to live, which is what separates the two.

i won’t apologize for being a hater. seeing comments on chappell roans posts about being too hypersexual and needing to dial it down (mmm dial what down. say it very explicitly to me. what is making you uncomfortable in your own very clear words) and directly contrasting it with renee rapp just made me not like that girl even more i’m sorry! maybe she should try not being an annoying blonde bi girl who only seems to hang out with other blonde bi girls making mediocre pop. whoops

if i could i would inject rio being a loving and supportive mother to miles right into my veins. like YES. do you know how often black boys are just told to man up and are forced to be people they aren’t ESPECIALLY by their moms. someone sedate me

the car seat is headresting that’s for certain

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thinking abt how i’m already a chronic maladaptive daydreamer w a sensitive sidereal pisces moon in the 8th house and having access to klonopin is like a forcefield of protection for my brain and body it’s only times like these i feel safe enough to come out of hiding and glide around the real world for a little bit before the drugs wear off and i dive back into my other multi universes and try to experience life through them instead except but lately it’s gotten harder and i think it’s because i’ve been so out of touch with reality for so long that i got stuck in this weird state of writer’s purgatory i used to be able to draw so much inspiration for my characters and story plots from the real world but now it’s blanks ……..i need 2 go outside n touch grass or smthing how do i feel connected to myself and the world again i don’t want to but i think that’s the reason why i can’t write anymore as much as i try…i spent >17hrs a day trying to organize 4 different stories at a time my brain is scattered im losing hope and motivation all over again …. alllll over again!!

I’m sorry but I just hate fucking capitalism I hate it so much like I literally cannot ever express the rage I feel over the pursuit of money above health and well-being of ourselves and the entire world around us in so many ways that literally almost every single shitty thing about modern western society and the places it’s colonized comes down to evil being done for greed and the pursuit of power and FUCKING MONEY.

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Your're spot on. They're so holier than thou that they legitimitely think that in they would NEVER commit a violent act in that situation despite never having been in such a desperate situation. The funny thing is that they're no better than you or I even if they love to act like they're above it all.

Yeah! It’s not even a ‘we all make bad decisions’ it’s a ‘genuinely some times you have to do extreme things for good’. It’s the Deacon St John “Alright, you know what? You might not like it, but the world is what it is. Yeah, it is. Prayin ain’t gonna change that. Wishing that it was something else? Ain’t gonna make it that way!” - Clementine “It takes more than words! You can’t just talk people into being peaceful. You think I don’t want a life like that for AJ? For myself? God, I’d love to live in a world where I didn't have to worry about killing or dying, but that’s just not how things fucking work!” It’s absolutely true that under any kind of pressure, people who’ve never actually had to practice making hard choices will not be saints and will in fact routinely handle it worse, but it’s also true that inaction can be just as bad or worse than action. Ignoring that, and worse, judging or hurting others for their understanding the world /does/ require action, and sometimes extreme or unpleasant action, is a vile thing that in turn actually causes a lot of harm.

They’re not just wrong about what they do and would do, they’re wrong about how the world works on a fundamental level, and hypocritical and pretentious about it. Sneering at someone who’s lived in life or death struggle making choices you’ve never even had to think about isn’t just not your place, it turns you into one of the aggressors they’re pushing back against. If you’re calmly sitting at a table watching someone on the floor getting the shit beat out of them every night, snacking on pretzels while you tell them they should try to understand the emotions of the person slowly killing them, or reason with them, or that even if this is extreme, you can understand why the aggressor is mad and maybe if you didn’t piss them off, or hid the behavior they don’t like better, or acted better, they’d quit beating the shit out of you? You’re not an innocent third party or a mediator. You’ve chosen a side, and it’s the aggressor. You’re an enabler. Your inaction when you should act immediately shows passive support, and your blaming and placing the weight of change on the victim even in extremes shows how deeply and commits you to chasing harm side by side with them. You support the aggressor. Sometimes, there can be no middle ground, and trying to stand between someone trying to destroy the lives of others just because they exist, and people fighting back to survive, to suggest they should reach a common ground between those two points, or that hitting back when you’re hit makes you just as bad as your attacker, and it’s better to suffer, even if you’ve got some genius plan to cut out half the suffering so it’s only half the abuse? That makes you one of the people demanding oppression be accepted and submitted to. You just feel self-righteous about it. And suggesting there’s some secret pacifist way to talk someone who wants you dead into letting you live your dream life? That still makes you a staunch supporter of the agenda of the aggressor, because you’re still a person standing against anyone standing up to them; you’re just an utterly delusional one.

People are so quick to justify their own actions, and so insanely unwilling to even consider maybe they can’t be the supreme understander of what’s right when it comes go people reacting to a lifetime of pain and aggression and fear they have no idea what it feels like to live under the pressure and choices of every day of their life, and they have no right to police every decision made by people who have to live with the consequences for them and theirs of action and inaction both, for every waking minute for the rest of their time on this planet.

pretty sure I’ve been hypomanic the last week or so and I’m not sure what to do about it