#so i think mav and cyclone are an older version of TG’s mav & ice

[compacflt]

cymav thoughts?

i Have given it a lot of thought over the last six months bc multiple people have asked and I really don’t have any cymav thoughts unfortunately

from where i sit they have no chemistry and they’re each in their 50s when they canonically meet so there’s no real incentive to get together

cyclone is like ice (annoying version) on steroids. the scene that for me defines the cymav relationship is the scene after ice’s funeral when cyclone a.) kicks mav out of the fucking navy and ends his career after mav just got kicked in the teeth by ice’s death (not endearing or attractive) and b.) scraps Maverick’s mission parameters and recreates them in a way that is technically safer but definitely more likely to get all of the aviators killed, maybe just to cover his own ass—he and maverick think so differently about tactics and strategy that they are diametrically opposed in a way i think is fundamentally incompatible. I don’t think they would ever be friends let alone sexually or romantically involved

Lest we forget cyclone is mav’s superior & commanding officer when they meet so that’s a weird place to start as well—they are never equals in institutional power even meeting. I feel like part of why icemav works so well is because they were both snotty overconfident greenhorned lieutenants when they met/went through unspeakable levels of trauma together. Whereas with cyclone it’s not like “when we met we were both lieutenants who saved each others lives in active combat while fighting side by side for the same mission❤️” it’s “when we met he was an admiral three ranks my senior and he contemptuously ended my whole 35-year career and LITERALLY commanded me to my death from his position of relative safety and if i had died it ostensibly wouldn’t have affected him at all…❤️?”

Cyclone is like ice: he is successful in the navy because he refuses to have any daring or break the rules at all, and only digs up a hint of respect for maverick after he is repeatedly proven wrong (annoying, runs counter to mav’s whole ethos)

if they Were ever to be involved, it would have to be kind of an icemav post-original-tg-mission thing where they learn how to respect each other over a long time, because clearly there’s a lot of deep-seated disrespect for each other especially from cyclones view towards maverick. He straight up does not think mav is a worthwhile asset to the navy, a good tactician, OR capable of basically anything that is asked of him. he openly tells mav the only reason he’s still in the navy is admiral Kazansky, outwardly and rudely dismissing any prior skill or valor maverick has exhibited and earned. For Mav, someone whose ego is his most prized possession, that might be too deep an injury to bear, even if he proved cyclone wrong in the end. And after he retires, there’s nothing keeping him & cyclone in the same place to become friends, and by TGM neither seems to me like the kind of guy to ask former nemeses out to drinks if they don’t have to, so i don’t think they would

those are my wet blanket thoughts. I personally don’t see it sorry