Me When I Purposefully Consume Media That Will Damage My Mental Health:

Here's some Ash and Eiji matching icons. I tried bringing out the colors on the clearest copy of this photo. ☕️

Wish I'd have someone to pair it with, that'd be swell gshsbs.

artblock so i drew babygirl rq

Will forever point out Eiji's tiny blush when Ash pulls him closer for the shooting training

sketch

THE CAMERA AND THE GUN

(tw: discussion/explicit mention of Ash Lynx's past)

I think that as a fandom, we don't appreciate the importance of Eiji being a photographer (or going to the US as one) enough.

Given Ash's past, cameras are something he's very vulnerable under. He's constantly been exploited for his body and image, and the child corn videos of him were still up for distribution until Max burned all of it. Even the sound of cameras can be a triggering memory, such as when he's confronting Kippard and he's transported back into a childhood memory with the incessant "click click click" of the camera.

Eiji, showing up to that bar, pulling up a camera with his job literally being to take pictures of him, embodied everything Ash should distrust. However Eiji asks is he can take the photos, and Ash replies "not the face", this obviously makes sense given he's a criminal, but with what we learn later it's obviously more than that.

Ash was carrying a gun, Eiji a camera, to both of them what the other person was carrying was the greater weapon. However, famously, Eiji asks for Ash's gun, takes it and gives it back and says "thank you for trusting me with it", which I think is really key. Ash has just seen that if he can trust Eiji with a gun, perhaps he can trust him with a camera.

Which he does. We never really see Eiji take pictures of Ash during the course of the show, but we know he did thanks to garden of light, where we actually see some of them. The fact that Eiji has a camera, giving him the power to make Ash feel vulnerable and observed, but doesn't at any moment, must've given Ash so much hope. In the same way he tells Eiji that it's the first time anyone has done something for him without "asking for something in return" this is probably the first time someone has had the power to hurt him and not used it.

The fact Ash can trust Eiji so fully with a camera, and feel comfortable and unguarded around him just speaks so so much to the nature of their relationship and just how deep and true it was. With Eiji, Ash really can just be himself "a boy of 17 years old" he's not afraid in the slightest, even if every single thing from his past should tell him to run. The trust Ash has in Eiji is just as great and moving as the trust Eiji has in Ash. Eiji tells Ash he was never scared of him, not for a moment, which is something that Ash finds great comfort in, but it's also true the other way around.

Eiji the one who trusted a boy with a gun and Ash , the one who trusted a boy with a camera. Gosh I love them.

🍌🐟

Summer of 85

he is SO in love with Eiji its insane.

At the bar

he is part of your soul, as the poets say

ash & eiji in every episode ↳ EP12 | TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT