#i really hesitated posting it bc of 4 inaccuracies i knew were there

[compacflt]

I hope you didn't think I was pointing out flaws with my question! I think your analysis and self reflection are commendable! I would not really have known much about security clearances except for the fact that I went through the process and only on a surface level.

As for the "fatal flaw" i understood it was necessary for the main conflict of the story. In much the same way that the original Top Gun uses the Top Gun trophy when none exists in real life and it would be a major problem if it did. If that was really how they were training the pilots then the cause of Goose's death would have prompted them to review the whole framework of how they teach. Even the second movie has a "fatal flaw" in the pulling of Rooster's paper's by Maverick which makes no sense (for starters, he'd have to ask someone higher up than him to do something unethical) but they needed a conflict. I agree Maverick seems OOC in TG:M

But, I'm reminded of a line in How to Make an American Quilt where one of the characters who is talking about breaking the rules in art says something like "sometimes you have to break the rules for the piece to come alive"

no anon you are so good!!! i just felt like it would be disingenuous of me to answer your question without acknowledging the elephant in the room which is the story’s incompatibility with nosy govt officials lol. And also i think I am just…idk, very disappointed with some aspects of the story that i know could be better, so i wanted to talk about it. because this fic is the first 50k+ thing ive ever finished i think it means disproportionately much to me and i am disproportionately disappointed that it’s not perfect, even though that was inevitable. it is insanely disappointing to be a “young writer” or whatever and know that your work is not capable of reaching your adult ambitions specifically because you lack the life experience to convincingly portray those adult ambitions, because that’s not something you can fix by reading more or taking a writing class etc. that gap between what I want to write (adults dealing with big adult problems) and what I’m actually capable of writing (not that because I’ve never been an adult with big adult problems) is still so disappointingly wide. like with “the house,” for instance, i literally had to ask my mom how “two friends” would go about buying a house, which should’ve been my first indication that I was about to Post Cringe On Main, but I just wasn’t thinking about what that commitment means because I didn’t have the experience to know that I SHOULD be thinking about it, if that makes sense. but by then it was too late, that was the last chapter i wrote & had already written 60k+ words where ice and mav had… “a house…” because they needed to be in the same place. It’s just disappointing to know that these are holes I dug for myself early early on because of a lack of care, a lack of forethought, a lack of maturity… etc.

But whatever, im learning from it, I’ll take these lessons & apply them to the next big project i work on & that’s how things get better. still disappointing tho. But thank you & sorry it took so long for me to answer ur first ask but it rly made me think & i love making story graphs