#pete riske

[couldtransitionsaveher]

PETE RISKE/SETBACK from SENTINELS OF THE MULTIVERSE

JUSTIFICATION:

"Honestly, just read her backstory on the wiki page. "

- @girlsackthing

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[lorekeeper-backset]

Setback is a fun guy because you don't have to put him in situations they just happen to him naturally.

[polar-equinoxx]

“Mav I love you more than anything else but god-dammit stop attempting such risky manoeuvres,”

[minorfamilysupremacy]

how long did macau wait after leaving the temple before elbowing vegas in the ribs and going ‘OOOOOOH DO YOU HAVE A CRUUUUUUSH ON PETE OOOOOOH ARE YOU GONNA MAAAAARRRRRY HIM’ because my money is on ‘literally the second they were out of sight and even that was a struggle’

[thatsrightice]

Maverick is bragging to all of the other pilots about taking the Iceman’s tower-buzzing virginity but Ice just gives him a look and suddenly Maverick has him pushed against the wall demanding an explanation. So he’s now got to figure out how to gently break it to Mav that an air traffic control tower in the middle of nowhere could not believe that they had a F-14 under their control and requested he fly by them at 500 ft AGL with a little wing rock.

[neuromancer1888]

I live for that slow smile Iceman gives Maverick after saying 'You're still dangerous!' It speaks volumes. The genuine affection it just destroys me.

[pollyna]

2020!Ice back in '86 would tell Mav about the hop, or at least try to make him understand to take caution against jet washes even if it cost him to come back to an empty bed and a life without Maverick in it.

[regentochter]

*Kinn smoking, Vegas cursing in English, Kim fighting, Pete smiling while being tortured*

[compacflt]

I love your interpretation of Mav and Ice. I love how realistic they both feel because well, they're white men in the Navy starting in the 80s. What it does make me wonder about Carole? I know you don't write for her but your analysis of Top Gun itself just made me wonder about her. Like whether she was a traditional military wife or just kinda met Goose and fell into it. Did Goose's death and the period between his death and her's change anything? Did it make her more skeptical of the military because of the cause of Goose's death or was her asking Mav to not let Bradley fly purely out of her hurt for Goose's death and not a moral/political thing also. PS. I read your Slider fic and absolutely adored it

well… i think any attempt to flesh out Carole’s character is gonna be completely based on conjecture, because we’re not given more than “slightly naive Christian woman who doesn’t always say exactly the right thing.”

But I think it’s helpful to remember where she fits into the narrative at large, and why: Carole Bradshaw is the villain of the Top Gun franchise. Top Gun is her villain origin story.

The rhetorical purpose of the top gun franchise is: to make money, obv, AND to get people to join the navy. (to what extent it’s successful at achieving that latter goal is the topic of a different post… im certainly not the first to say it’s pretty easy to find an antimilitary reading of TG.) but if top gun is aiming to portray the navy as someplace you want to be, and someplace where you have to earn a spot to be (as I keep repeating over the last couple weeks, it’s all about honor), then Carole Bradshaw becomes the villain of the recruiting story of Top Gun: Maverick, because she (momentarily) prevented her son from joining the navy with the honor he thought he deserved, and she is to blame for the emotional through line of the entire movie. Thank God! we don’t have to blame maverick for fucking up and preventing Bradley from achieving his Dream Of Working As A US Military Contractor! we can blame his dead mom instead, so that maverick is still a good guy whom we, a moderately-conservative pro-navy target audience (🤑), can still root for & pay money to see.

so yeah narratively speaking she’s just a scapegoat. She has no agency in the story whatsoever, she’s only an object to receive blame. any backstory/reasoning/character we invent for her doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t really matter WHY she does it—whether she hates the military or not, narratively speaking we have to blame her just the same either way—it just matters that she does it. and then she has to immediately die so she can’t explain herself and maverick has to self-sacrificially take the blame. Because otherwise the plot of TGM wouldn’t happen, which would not achieve the rhetorical goals of making a bunch of money and getting kids to sign up for the navy.

[fangirlfreak08]

Honestly foul of Spotify to play me secret love song while I’m watching merlin and reading icemav Fanfiction

[lorekeeper-backset]

The Sentinels of the Multiverse brainrot has ruined me I can't see the word Setback without thinking of Pete Riske.

[artisdrama]

the thing that gets me the most is how the fandom is obsessed with understanding vegas when he’s almost like an open book with his intentions, while series’ pete motivations and inner monologue is so much more complex and maybe even darker.

vegas desire to antagonize and to be an abuser is a way to regain control over his life, but pete? his moral compass is so much more curious. vegas does bad stuff because he feels the need to be a bad person to justify the abuse he went through, and he definitely knows he’s doing bad things. pete? pete’s moral compass is so much more complex. sometimes i don’t even know how to read his actions. everything he does indicates a set of beliefs parallel to the other characters. i’m so intrigued

[spicyvampire]

I understand Pete because I too will sometimes eat nothing until I get some instant noodles

[davincsoo]

"After all of the shit that I did to you, why did you stay?"

Pete looked at Vegas with kind eyes, not minding answering the question that has been asked one too many times before. He would give him different answers, short ones, but different nonetheless, and Vegas would accept them as to not continue the conversation further.

This time, however, Vegas had been struggling heavily with his mental health; flashbacks plaguing his thoughts, and memories tourmenting him in his dreams. Pete has noticed it for a while, even when Vegas would flash him that big smile he loved to see, gums showing as he done so. Pete thought that his answer this time should leave a mark on Vegas.

"The best way I can explain it to you," Pete begins as he curls into Vegas beneath the blankets on their shared bed, "is it's like you're standing in a burning building, trapped by fallen debris, and your only possible way out is a door that is engulfed in flames. You think that it will be impossible because you'll get burned for trying, or you'll succumb to the outcome of the raging inferno surrounding you. You'll struggle with what to do, tossing ideas around and following it by crippling anxiety that you'll fail with everything you think of. But then you remember suddenly that there is a life out there waiting for you, there are people waiting for you to come out safely. So you push through the pain filling your body both internally and externally, and you break through the door, paying no mind to the flames, paying no mind to the burning that it's causing."

"You go on despite this because the thoughts of what's awaiting you outside of the fire, the memories of your family and friends, it's like this force that is protecting you, guiding you to somewhere safe," Pete continues. He pauses, noticing the confusion in Vegas' eyes. He chuckles slightly and clarifies. "The flames are all of the shit that you have done to me and put me through. Some days I feel like the flames will consume me, swallow me hole, and I won't be able to recover from it. But then I remember certain times that you were good to me, fair, and warm. When you nursed me back to health, when you studied me enough to make me foods to suit my taste. When you would lay next to me at night and just hold me while I cried from the memories of it all. All of these and more keep me here, keep me by your side because even though the flames are harmful, they can also be beautiful."

Vegas' eyes began to fill with tears and he bit down on his bottom lip. He looked a Pete briefly, and then turned his head away from him. Pete was sure this time that his answer left a long and good lasting impression on him.

[huntersapprentice]

woo hoo, I made another "put the vts over thing" thing doodle, mickey donald goofy: the three musketeers but it's a bunch of produce in France

[kloofspeaks]

His Name Was Bradley | A Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell One-shot

TW: Mentions of death, implied self sacrifice, the feeling of seeing a dead body (It's not graphic, but Maverick see's his body and it get's mentioned a couple times,) and mourning loved ones.

Summary: Maverick thinks of what could've been if he was the one who could've died up there. Yet, now he was standing in front of the grave of a man he thought wouldn't die till years later.

Words: 1500 (BIG ONE LETS GO)

(Tags, read at your own risk if you really want to: @bayisdying, @notyoursbutlewis, @viothewolx, @callmemana)

“Can you believe it’s been five years?” That question was ringing in his ears, had it really been five years since that time?

It felt like just yesterday they were both inside that F-14 flying like hell to get back home. Maverick was sitting in the hard deck while Penny was talking about the past, he wasn’t paying attention. 

His eyes were on the dusty piano, the piano that hadn’t been played in five years as it had the carvings of lyrics in the wood from the comrades of the dead boy. 

He had died that day, the day they were fighting for a way back home. 

Everything was fake.

The boy was never there with him during that whole F-14 fight. 

He never got to tell him what he wanted to talk about. 

He had saved Mavericks life and died in a fiery hell. 

He wished for something to tell him everything was going to be alright, but that never came. 

No one cared to ask Maverick how it affected him, 

He had grabbed the helmet and snapped off the dog tags off the boy’s body. He couldn’t cry, he was too deep in grief to just stand there in that snowy escape and allow sour tears of failure hit his damaged and peaceful body. 

He remembers the funeral, the second one he had to do that year. 

The lieutenant’s surrounding Maverick in a big hug, he could always remember what Phoenix told him before she took off to her next squadron.

“It’ll get better.” She had a small smile, even after all the tears she had shed for her dear friend.

She somehow found the happiness that Maverick couldn’t even get a grasp on.

There had been nights when he stood out on the front steps of Penny’s house, just staring out to the ocean coated in a clear paint of moonlight. He felt like he failed. 

He failed Carole

He failed Goose

He failed Ice 

Who else could he fail? He had one task.

Bring everyone home. 

He couldn’t even do that right, was his whole life just a bunch of mistakes that ended on a good note? He couldn’t tell, he couldn’t even understand what he did wrong. 

Why did the kid do that to himself? He knew the outcome, he knew that Maverick did that so he could live on, it’s all his dad would’ve wanted. 

But instead Maverick was the one who had to sit and stare at still photos of his old friends, his old wingmen. 

He remembered the day the kid showed him how to wear a cowboy hat properly after Goose had been going on and on about their Tennessee genes. 

He never grew up to have such a thick accent as his dad, he never even had a chance to grow up past thirty-two.

Oh, how Maverick had to pick him up and swing him around just to get the lad to cheer up and have a wide smile on his face. 

The night when Goose looked Maverick dead in his eyes and told him he was going to be a God parent was a night that was unforgettable. 

The first time Maverick had cried was when he held the kid.

The second time was when he had to bury his dear friend. 

The third time was when Carole broke down in front of him.

The fourth was when she passed right there in his arms in that hospital bed, the beeps of the heart monitor slowly fading and nothing else felt real anymore. 

The fifth time never came. 

Crying felt guilty, he had one simple task. He failed to do everything that involved that task. 

Nobody blamed Maverick though, it was the kid’s choice to put his life on the line.

But Maverick couldn’t think about his choice, he could only think about the promise that Carole had told him just moments before she died. 

“Don’t let him fly, Mav. Not after what happened to Goose.”

She had asked him one stupid request that ruined everything, and the kid had to go out of his way to kill himself. 

Just because Maverick had put himself in danger in good ol’ Maverick fashion. 

He knew Goose would’ve done the same thing. 

They were related, from the edge of their mustaches to the sound of their voices.

You couldn’t go anywhere without them.

That’s why he felt like he was held accountable for this.

The image of his lifeless body, the way Maverick bit his lip till it bled to stop himself from shedding a single tear. 

He didn’t want to leave him.

He didn’t want to let go of his friend a second time. 

He was trusted with the blonde.

But he couldn’t do it. 

He gave him an honorable goodbye. 

He was the whole reason the mission was successful. 

But it didn’t feel successful, everyone was off after that day.

Hangman, Phoenix and Coyote continued with their training, while the others hung back a bit to help Maverick around and keep him in better spirits. 

He remembered the look on Bob’s face when he was telling him all about the way he used to fly with Iceman. 

The way that everyone seemed to act like a team as they were making a small memory of the boy. 

The photos pinned in his favorite reading spot, a small memory of the red helmet right next to his father’s. 

He wasn’t supposed to go that soon. 

But everyone knew he did it for a better future. 

Everyone except Maverick. 

There was no better future without him. 

Without him and his father.

He had no one else.

Goose was always the one that made Maverick feel included, he was quite the shy and spunky guy. Everyone seemed to judge him before they spoke to him.

Goose was always able to get them to know Maverick though. 

So, after Goose died.. Maverick didn’t know how to communicate like him. 

It was sort of like he lost part of his character. 

But soon, his son started to fill that void. 

It was a slow filling of the vase. 

They were huge shoes to fill.

From the nights the kid would run around Mavericks hangar with his father’s helmet on.

To the days where they sat outside on the beach behind the hard deck talking about their differences. 

He was no different from his dad. 

He filled those shoes with no problem.

That’s why Maverick blamed himself. 

Everytime he looked at him.. he saw his father in those brown eyes. 

They always looked so hollow, so full of ideas.. like there were so many things going through the boy’s head at once. 

It was just like Goose. 

Just like the person that should’ve been there to raise him.

Now, Maverick had to replace the beautiful flowers on three graves instead of two.

The bradshaw name was gone.

It had shattered the day he lost him.

The day he broke his promise on so many accounts. 

“It wasn’t your fault, Mav.”

 He could hear Penny repeating the same lines over and over in his head as he reached out and grabbed the cup of beer in front of him.

It never tasted the same as the night he watched the boy play piano just like his father. 

The day he was thrown out by his lieutenant’s who barely knew his name.

He could remember the days he stood in front of his grave and just asked him why.

Like he was expecting some sort of answer. 

Some sort of being to pop out of the ground and tell him the answer to this one and simple issue. 

Penny always said it was because he loved him.

He was like a father figure to the kid, he couldn’t say anything else but that. 

It had to be him.. out of all people to raise his bestfriends son. 

It wasn’t Goose

It wasn’t Carole

But it was Maverick

The recluse everyone thought wouldn’t last long in a plane with all his fly-by’s and lack of authority. He was a Maverick, nobody could control his high-strung ego. 

That was unless it was Goose. 

The boy had his father’s talents too.

They both could tame the bull by its horns. 

But now there was no one to do that anymore. 

So the man spiraled.

He couldn’t feel anything in his finger tips. 

But all he could say,

All he could remember when he would tell people about this story.

The story of emotions 

A family name 

A musically talented man

And a son that followed in his father’s footsteps no matter how much his mother hated his mustache. 

Was that

His name was Bradley.