When Iceman Met Maverick

When Iceman met Maverick

Mav knocks loudly at Ice's front door in the night before the Suicide Mission. Ice groggily opens the door in his fluffy checkered bathrobe, grey hair perfectly in place despite just waking up. He glares groggily at Maverick who is breathless and windswept still in his dress whites looking like he has hasn't slept and has instead run a mile from the beach to his house. Before he can say anything, Maverick exclaims:

Mav: "Tom, I love you."

Ice: [Ice sighs] "I'm sorry, Maverick. I know it's the eve of the Uranium Mission. I know you're feeling lonely, but you just can't show up here, tell me you love me after all these years, and expect that to make everything all right. It doesn't work this way."

Mav: "I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out despite your callsign being Iceman. I love that it takes you an hour and a half after ordering a Vodka to finally drink it all down in one go right before you leave the bar. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me annoyed after I pissed off yet another Admiral. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your cologne on my clothes. And I love that I can always count on you to watch my wing in the air and on the ground. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because I might die tomorrow. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life, no matter how little of it you may have left, to start as soon as possible."

Ice: [Stares at Maverick in shock] "… Pete"

Mav: [Takes off his hat and drops down on one knee in front of Ice's big yard] "Marry me."

[The light of the full moon faintly illuminates the engraved writing within the ring that spells "Bullshit, you can be mine."]

Tutti frutti, oh rootie / A wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom!

animation sequence from one of Val Kilmer's crazy dance sequences in Top Secret! (1984) because I was very very impressed

I was geeking out talking to @cannibalhellhound about imping; repairing a (raptor's) wing by replacing broken feathers with donor feathers. The donor feathers allow the bird to keep flying and will fall out with the next molt.

Okay now imagine that being done intentionally with winged people like Mav here. Exchanging flight feathers to show the world you're committed to one another! Ceremonies in which you take one of your own flight feathers and tenderly put it in your partner's wing!

Imagine the chaos when Captain Mitchell one day shows up boasting a pristine white feather in each dark wing and what a coincidence, the COMPACFLT suddenly has flashes of rich honey brown nestled in between his sleek white feathers :3

(we're ignoring that it would probably be very annoying if not impossible to try and fly with a flight feather that's a completely different shape than your own uwu)

Some messages left by queer Palestinians who face annihilation by the Israeli government in their retaliation against Hamas. The Israeli government has dropped thousand of bombs, leveled streets, cut off water, gas, and electricity, bombed hospitals, ambulances, mandated evacuation and then bomb evacuees. Innocent people are dying in the mass.

There is no need for this government to employ these acts of collective punishment. The same logic that is used to condemn the acts of Hamas, should be used to condemn the actions of the Israeli government. No one deserves to slaughtered and dehumanized.

And keep in mind, that this terror is not unusual for the Palestinian people, and this is another horrific event in a decades long oppression and apartheid.

insp