Oh, see, I totally get the flying=freedom thing, which, when headspace is written as that, as a release, makes sub!John totally make sense to me. Dom!John takes a lot of work for me to believe - he's just so lackadaisical in canon and that inner dorky twelve year old just... I can't see him being toppy, and unless it's actually addressed, I can't seem to get past it (thus why most dom!John PWPs don't work for me).
Interesting though - I've never considered John to be a control freak, and I don't read that about his flying at all. That's pretty diametrically opposed to my typical characterization, actually - which is more about John being able to roll with it, adapt to whatever a situation throws at him. People who need to have control in that way (which Rodney seems the type to me) seem (to me - I don't honestly know anyone like this) to be less able to adapt and more likely to fall apart when things don't go the way they want them to. (Which, again, is a feeling I get when I think about characterization with regard to these two characters, and doesn't speak to anyone IRL with any of these tendencies.)
no subject
Interesting though - I've never considered John to be a control freak, and I don't read that about his flying at all. That's pretty diametrically opposed to my typical characterization, actually - which is more about John being able to roll with it, adapt to whatever a situation throws at him. People who need to have control in that way (which Rodney seems the type to me) seem (to me - I don't honestly know anyone like this) to be less able to adapt and more likely to fall apart when things don't go the way they want them to. (Which, again, is a feeling I get when I think about characterization with regard to these two characters, and doesn't speak to anyone IRL with any of these tendencies.)