thinking about how eiji's a pole vaulter and how ash talks about eiji "flying" and how eiji's associated with bird imagery and how eiji's free (unlike ash) and how eiji comes in on a plane and leaves on a plane and how ash cannot fly, ash cannot be free, how nyc is ash's prison, and how ash is the leopard who dies climbing the mountain, unable to live at such elevation, how he was trying to reach the sky and be free but was always stuck to the earth, how he chose to die instead of climbing back down, how he chose to die where he could see the sky and hope and freedom almost like a bird with eiji's letter right in front of him rather than letting everything go wrong and ruin it once again, how eiji's a failed pole vaulter anyway, how a bad fall ruined his career and grounded him (physically and emotionally), how it took flying to america and meeting ash and needing to save him and skip for him to try flying again, how he landed hard and harsh and still the thought of that escape compelled ash to protect eiji at all costs because if he could fly that means something to him, even if he doesn't think he can fly, how eiji is the manifestation of his hope and how when he breaks and asks eiji to stay with him a while he folds himself over his legs and weighs him down and traps him and grounds him, how ash fights like hell to keep eiji alive not because he thinks he can be like him (hopeful, flying, innocent), but because he makes him forget the gravity of his situation, and so he can see eiji fly again. how he wants to see him escape. how eiji is a bird and ash is a wildcat and how ash never once saw eiji as prey. how eiji never saw ash as a predator. how it is eiji's naivete that first endears ash to him, how it is his freedom and flight and removal from darkness and his ability to leave that darkness that really roots eiji in ash's blood as something essential to him keeping on living in this hell of nyc. how it is that distance from the violence and that hope for the future that ash chooses to surround himself in as he dies. how ash dies in a dream because he feels more than anything that he can't fly like eiji, that he can never leave. how his violence is a part of him and will be forever, how it weighs him down. how he wants to enjoy the view from the mountainside rather than looking up from the ground below. as if they can both fly. as if he is with him up there and not grounded. eye-to-eye with what he can't have, seeing eiji's homeland: the sky. how he dies trying to reach the top because he couldn't take retreating and trying again. how ash, tired and tired and tired and convinced it will go on forever if he crawls back down the mountain, chooses to close his life deluged in eiji, in eiji's insistence that they can fly together, in eiji's hope for him and for them, in eiji's beautiful dream. how ash dies without trying to realize that dream. how ash, in dying, destroys it.
258 notes
·
View notes
So with this recent resurgence of bottom!Billy discourse in the Butchlander tag…
I’ve never written bottom!Billy* but have translated it from Russian. But it’s not what’s in the tag now. The Russian fics tended to be short, about a brutal rape scenario, and often set (and written, as far as I can tell) right after the author saw season 1.
I watched the show very rapidly after 3 seasons were available, so I can only imagine what my shipping would have been like post S1. I can see it having a different flavor than post season 3, where the power balance has shifted, and we’ve seen HL be in a lot more weak positions and vulnerable/embarrassing situations. I think Billy Butcher has changed a lot less through the seasons, although we do see a softer side emerge too (more insight into his past, his worrying about Hughie, his taking Ryan in- although this last one is kind of wobbly in my view because of how badly he fumbles it in s3 and we don’t get to see much before he fumbles it).
At this point, I’m much more comfortable swimming in the Top the Butcher x Bottom the Homelander space, because Billy’s got more toxic masculinity than HL the way The Boys show presents his sexuality, for better or worse, is Good, Normal, Adult Masculine, Daddy’s Home, Yes he’ll go down on Maeve but he also makes her sigh and swoon and go limp even though she’s a formidable toppy presence who keeps namecalling Hughie a twink. Whereas HL’s pattern so far is one of accommodating his partner and sheepish fear that he might hurt them, his fond memory of Maeve is how strong her legs were lol, and if he is demanding during sex it’s presented in a sort of infantile and or submissive way (i.e. I want finger nomnoms, I want pets, I want to be thrown around by someone strong enough (!), I want people to say they’re going to take care of me, I want unconditional love and support and NO JUDGMENT).
I think my perception of this is pretty common in fandom, judging by the steep rise in “bottom the Homelander” as a tag right after S3. I think if anyone had lingering trouble seeing it, Herogasm gave a pretty good visual reference 😂
* the top/bottom semantics in this post may not strictly mean whose dick is going in which hole but more of a mental space (although there is strong correspondence with the prominent sex positioning). You know it when you read it. I have seen very few fics where they are presented without a clear-cut dynamic. And at this point many people on AO3 will tag this dynamic, even if it’s at the risk of being reductive, because it helps the reader know what flavor of fic they’re getting into.
46 notes
·
View notes
I CANT HELP BUT THINK OF YOUR CHRONOS AND CRONUS AU- and i got this really silly idea where if you offer him the bathsalts he would nod and go with u/melinoe whatevs- but they both forgot how sand gets super heavy underwater so the moment he dips himself in he turns into a pile of sand at the bottom of the hotspring??? cue you/melinoe desperately gathering up the sand and setting it aside in a bucket or something and having to help him dry so that he can regain his form again. Poor broken old man :V
Oh my god that’s brilliant. The moment Chronos just dips right in and looks relaxed (for once after Cronus and he threw hands the first time), he fucking reduces to a pile a sand. U/Melinoe quickly trying to gather up the sand and the moment his two guards come by to check up on em, the panic and horror the moment they see u/Melinoe stressed out and quickly putting the sand in a bucket. The two joining u/Melinoe in putting the sand in the bucket and attempting to dry him off.
Once they dry him off and he regains his form, He's confused as caught off guard with what happened and concerned the moment he sees the trio just exhausted out of their minds.
Bonus: If Broken Chronos's body was in a somewhat more stable state, He wouldn't reduce to a pile and sand and can actually enjoy the warmth which would feel so foreign to him as he hasn't felt it in ages. His mind finally stabilizing and the two (him and u/Melinoe) are able to talk normally without his mind wandering off as much and his words actually make sense.
10 notes
·
View notes
because like. using carbon fiber was such an obviously bad idea. like its fucking fiber. its strands of carbon woven into a fabric. a common method of making it is to just burn rayon. insanely high tensile strength, literally zero compressive strength. all the stiffness of a carbon fiber material comes from whatever its in a composite with which usually means polymer resins. that submarine was relying on a cylinder of plastic with a bunch of shit mixed in to stand up to the pressure ¾ of a mile underwater. the actual carbon was contributing nothing. Billionaire Playboy Hamfisted McMetaphor and his plastic toy submersible was basically asking to die. its like he thought these proven engineering principles and safety regulations were nothing more than some sort of arbitrary etiquette. nobody builds deep sea pressure vessels out of carbon fiber because its the engineering equivalent of putting your elbows on the table. you gotta put a black box in your submarine because its rude not to. well hes not afraid to be impolite. what possible problem could there be, its carbon fiber, its so strong. and it looks cool. obviously hell be fine, hes a billionaire, someone took care of that for him. and people who think like that run the world. the entire global economy is a carbon fiber submarine, and I, for one, will relish watching the billionaires get crushed as the world implodes on all of us. look around you and tell me they dont deserve it.
4 notes
·
View notes