kernnit

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I'm sorry but one of my favourite parts of tg 1986, after its iconic gay volleyball scene ofc, is the shirtless locker room scene. Bc what do you mean Ice is arching his chest just to show off his tits and hairy abs while mav's instinct for retaliation was to arch his back to show off his ass…

like what in the mating ritual is going on???

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imma be honest I want to make a fic of this one day but for right now you just get me running wild with this headcanon

you know how there's those videos of surgeons being "inspirational" to their interns and then saying the meanest shit in the world? yeah, I think that's Iceman as an instructor at TOPGUN. 

Just the dry, rough sense of humor? The perfectly attenuated phrase in order to knock the arrogance out of some of these scrappy pilots? That's Iceman. The evidence is there in TG86! it's ICE who is saying the most bratty shit to Maverick. His criticisms are almost always valid or born of a real curiosity that's worth looking into, which I think is key, but he expresses it in the rudest and most inciting way possible. 

"Who was covering Cougar while you were showboating --"; (in response to Slider's calling Goose and Mav "famous") "I think you mean notorious"; "I don't like you 'cause you're dangerous" -- I mean Ice is right but he's also a bitch. (we don't have time to unpack ALL of what went into Ice goading Maverick seconds after meeting him with "need help figuring it out? who's the best pilot?" like my god man). 

So, some contenders for some of the commentary Ice might have for his students -- 

"Keep flying like that, I'm going to assume you're getting kickbacks from the military hospital." 

"I can only hope one day you fly for the enemy." 

"I was thrilled to hear the Navy's policy initiative for accommodating more disabilities went into action this year, however, I do think they should reconsider sending me blind pilots." 

"Are you on your wingman's life insurance or something?" 

"What did I say about making the same mistake twice?" "At least tell you I've learned something?" "No. What I said is don't." 

"Resist the urge to help me."

"I'm not looking for the best you can do. I'm looking for the best, period. So if you can't do any better, I suggest trying to emulate somebody else who can." 

"Well, you're no Artful Dodger, but artless dodging kept you alive well enough this time, I suppose." (I think it would be funny if he incidentally gave this poor pilot the callsign Dodger because of this, or A.D. for Artless Dodger)

"Did the Academy change its curriculum? Emphasize the element of surprise?" "Um... why do you ask, sir?" "Because you fly like you've never been inside a plane before." 

And I think he might say this to a colleague trying to pull rank over him that he neither respects nor cares about:

"I've neither the time, nor the crayons, to explain this to you." 

I think Mav would be so annoyed, too. "why do I have the reputation for being hard to work with when you're going around saying the meanest crap to these kids?" 

All Ice would do is laugh. "Sounds like a personal problem." 

Not to say that Ice is an asshole without restraint. Hell, the Iceman is all about restraint. He doesn't kick people when they're down. He doesn't say cutting stuff like this to people who are genuinely trying and not being a showoff. This is to knock overly arrogant kids down a few pegs, not send people into a shame self-doubting spiral, and Ice is usually pretty damn good at walking that line. 

Like, I imagine one of the students not understanding something to do with the physics portions of their classes and so he goes to Ice super nervous about getting reamed, and Ice is very patient with him. When Mav comes in and starts talking to Ice about instructor stuff, the student goes "oh, I can come back later, you know I think I'm getting it!" out of fear of wasting Ice's time and Ice would chuckle and be like "no, you clearly don't get it, and that's fine. Easier to teach you on dry land as opposed to up in the air, so let's keep working through it. Long as Mav's not about to talk to me about anything confidential --" which Mav shakes his head no "--alright, then how about you sit right there and keep working at it until you get it, and you will get it. If you've got the time, I've got the time, so let's get it done," and the kid stays in the office and keeps working at it for hours, occasionally checking his work with Mav and Ice until, voila, he does actually get it and also has a whole new understanding of Ice. 

Or if, god forbid, anyone had an accident, Ice would be all over trying to help with that (and help Mav work through it too) and protecting the students from any fallout from the brass because fuck them, they don't know what it's like to be in the air anymore. 

I also think that before the TOPGUN class starts, Ice would find Mav checking on all the canopies of all the jets and, once Ice realized that was what Mav was doing, would spend the next several hours with him helping out and making sure everything was operating properly, even though engineering had already looked at them. Can never be too sure, and if it provides Mav peace of mind, then Ice will do it, no questions asked. 

And so, despite saying some of the rudest crap most of these students have ever heard, they all love him. They all respect the ever-living-crap out of him, and learn to find him actually just kind of funny. It'd be a lot harder to like him if he were wrong, but he's so rarely wrong that in the end even the ones who do get pissed off at him manage to calm down. Students, as they graduate and leave TOPGUN, would probably talk to other graduating classes when they meet them on deployments like "oh my god, what did he say to your class?" "he once said --" "I didn't find it funny then but now I laugh every time I think about it -- " "he helped me figure out how to do..." so on so forth. 

There are a couple of the brass that aren't amused, but I think that's where Mav would come into play in his own way. Because Ice is good at what he does, and Mav sure as hell wants him around, and so should everyone else. Ice is just also not afraid to be an asshole about being good -- which the last person this is news to is Maverick. 

Maverick's just the only one Ice has encountered who can give as good as he gets, which is why as instructors, they do a pretty damn good job working together to whip their classes into shape. It's just funny that never in a million years did Mav think he'd be the "good cop" in their good cop/bad cop instructor situation, but he's resigned himself to his fate all the same. 

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top gun silliness

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The funniest thing about Icemav is that they are the fidgetiest boys. You expect it from Mav, but it's less expected from Ice, even though arguably Ice might be worse than Mav -- he certainly steals more stuff to fidget with than Maverick does.

Mav is always moving. Always darting around. He talks with his whole body. Shuffling his feet. Bobbing his knees. Openly assessing every room he's in (and he tends to do this when he's in a situation he wants out of -- such as at the very beginning when they're yelling at him about taking Penny up in a jet -- because it means avoiding eye contact).

Ice is a primetime fidgeter. He's looping pens around his fingers, flipping quarters up and down his knuckles, swirling his iced vodka, screwing around with his watch. He may not be jumpy like Mav is, but he sure as hell isn't still.

Worse is that the more time they spend with each other the more they start to pick up where the other left off. Mav starts making origami out of Ice’s gum wrappers, and Ice now has a tendency to “walk-and-talk” when before he didn’t have the urge to do that — he’s just gotten used to doing it with Mav.

Seeing them sit together at a booth? The two of them can't stop. Think Goose and Slider would accuse them of being human oscillators. Goose would probably nudge Mav in the shin to get him to stop bobbing his leg, and Ron would grab Ice by the shoulders and shake him.

When they finally get together? Well. They match each other's energy and then compete over it. Ice touching one place, Mav grabbing another, just constant. At the same time, though, they also would try to settle the other. They know what's just fidgeting and what's a stress tell, even though they wouldn't have the words for that yet. Mav's hand coming up over Ice's if he's whipping a pen around his hand real fast, stilling him, maybe even replacing the pen with his hand if they're in a safe place to do so. During an argument when Mav starts trying to check out because he doesn't want to get yelled at and looking anywhere but at Ice, Ice can say, "Mitchell. Look at me," because he wants to make clear he's not about to start screaming but they do need to get through this.

Carole’s the only one who thinks to ask them directly about it when they all — Slider, Goose, Little Goose, Ice, Mav, and Carole — are all out to brunch together on one of their few mornings free.

“Are all pilots this twitchy?” Carole teases them. “Is it a requirement?”

Both Ice and Mav say at the exact same time, in damn near perfect sync: “The best ones are.” Carole and Goose burst out laughing. Slider points at them. “You two. Have been spending WAY too much time together.”

They both just shrug. Truth is, they don’t even know the half of it (though Ice imagines they’re figuring it out). As it stands, Ice hands Mav another gum wrapper, and Mav takes the pen for the check and gives it to Ice to twirl, and they remain content to fidget until they get the receipt back and can all head home.

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it’s not oversharing if they’re your tumblr mutual

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happy pride month to:

what Hangman and Rooster have going on in Top Gun: Maverick (playing love songs for each other, getting alarmingly close to each other)

what Iceman and Maverick have going on in Top Gun (literally eyefucking each other in every moment they have eye contact)

(not my photos)

but yeah happy Pride Month!

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Happy Pride Month to these two and whatever the fuck they had going on in the 80s

And to their adopted son and his on/off boyfriend

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To my anon asking about icemav

Link to the video in my bio

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Every actor should be this loud about their characters' homoerotic relationships with other men. Rip to the only real ally.

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F1 Au!

The mechanics who have supported him so much over the past year cheer him on as he thanks them for their hard work. His family, hidden behind all the key figures of the team, waves at him and joins in the celebration.

It is in that very moment that he makes the most drastic decision of his life. When the interviewer asks about his future in the category, Tom replies that his goal has been achieved; he has nothing more to offer to this sport that has taken so much from him.

Amid the uproar caused by his statement, he meets Pete’s gaze. Emotions flash quickly behind the windows of those green eyes, none of them fully settling. Anger, defeat, heartbreak, and bitterness are the clearest ones Tom can decipher.

He considers them even now; Maverick took the love of his life, and Iceman took his favorite rival. With an ironic smile, he waves to the crowd and takes a sip of champagne.

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If Goose and Ice don't hold hands and haunt the narrative together in Top Gun 3 then I DON'T WANT IT

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What about Ice and Mav whose first several meetings happened a couple years before Top Gun at a random bar in Tennessee, where Ice was the god of the karaoke machine and Mav was the master of the mechanical bull.

Maybe Mav is staying at Goose's place and Ice is visiting his grandparents, and the locals are all absolutely delighted when they show up on the same night. They don't know each other at first, but they get to talking eventually, buying each other drinks, fucking. They switch stetsons a couple times, just for the thrill of it, throwing looks at each other across the bar.

The last time they see each other, Mav has to leave the bed early in the morning because he was so caught up in Ice that he forgot he and Goose are leaving. He grabs Ice's stetson by an accident and doesn't realize until he's packing his things.

He carries it with him everywhere he travels for years, just on the off change that he'll get to return it, but Top Gun is the last place where he'd expect it to happen.

That first night, he comes to the O club wearing it. He catches Ice's eyes across the room and there's not a hint of doubt in them. He's on Ice's radar, he's just waiting for him to fire.

And Ice does just that when he follows him to the bathroom with a smirk. "You know what they say, Mitchell? Wear the hat, ride the cowboy."

"You know I know how to ride it, Kazansky."

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It will forever mean so much to me that Tom Iceman Kazanski truly was Val's character. He built him and shaped him to his liking. He made up his backstory and gave him character. Shoutout to Val Kilmer for making arguably one of the best characters ever

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missing him hours

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I did something