#homelander thoughts and feelings

[saudrag]

the depth of self-awareness homelander showed in the new episode (s4e5) is mind boggling. and the fact that he did not get defensive over his manipulation of ryan, trying to excuse his previous actions, but instead he recognised the manipulation for what it was and corrected his behaviour while also acknowledging his wrongdoings out loud?

when ryan said that he wants to help people, you can see that john was not happy with that decision, because he doesn’t believe people deserve saving. and, from john’s perspective, when humans only showed him violence and manipulation and anguish since the little age, he is right. but if that’s what ryan wants, then he will support him, even if this suggestion makes him deeply uncomfortable and challenges his views and evokes the trauma. john will try because he no longer wants to be the same tormentor to ryan as his own “family” was to him.

absolutely incredible improvement, it makes his character so much more likable. the self-reflection was a very unexpected touch.

homelander really wants to be a better parent to ryan than the lab team was to him. and maybe he can even be that parent. we can only wait and see if he can really keep his promise and not fall in another vicious cycle.

[homielander]

i don't quite understand why ryan and homelander are back to the pre-4.05 status quo? ryan is once again being funneled through the vought media circus. he can't even get in touch with homelander. i am trying to follow this progression: homelander accepting firecracker's offer at the end of 4.06 represents more broadly that he can't quash the part of him that longs for love, try as he might. okay, sure. fine. but clearly this is not incompatible with his goal to take over the country, which he pursues throughout the episode. and he's grimly accepted that the realization of this goal also means that supes will "no longer be beloved celebrities . . . but wrathful gods." so why is ryan still being forced to play to the cameras? wasn't homelander over public adoration before he renounced humanity, anyway? what happened to homelander's promise that ryan could do whatever he wanted? this shift didn't even warrant a brief onscreen conversation?

i understand the larger contrast being illustrated and even like it -- homelander can't escape the rut of doing everything he does in service of vought, surrounding himself with yes-men, engaging in an emotionally hollow relationship likely to end violently, so on and so forth. meanwhile ryan breaks from the mould, refuses to let himself be puppeteered (literally), mirrors his father's live breakdown from last season but embraces his humanity by talking about becca and the values she instilled in him, rather than declaring his superiority over everyone else. it works, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

i just don't like how consistently miserable the depiction of their life together is. episodes 1 to 3 were full of expository and stilted dialogue as though they'd been living together for a week rather than six months, and the reprieve in episode 5 may as well have been skipped over considering it hasn't been resolved at all. i also just can't wrap my head around why homelander, who does love his son and craves domesticity, would be absent for their first christmas together. i am okay with the general direction of their relationship i guess, but i really wish we had gotten a more nuanced portrayal.

[tojigasm]

I believe in the healing properties of having a threesome with Billy Butcher and Homelander

[homelandering]

i couldn't help but notice homelander has a curious reaction to sage asking "who tongues your taint?"

of course he might be contemplating her question for its metaphorical meaning but i choose to believe he was surprised at the specific word choice because that's funnier. community input needed below

ETA: i'm a bad homelander stan because i forgot about this line, which confirms that 1. he does know what it is and 2. isn't so ignorant as to who can do it. also lends some support to him having received it, at least.

[seri-tonin]

Faruzan is the most underrated character in genshin and you can't change my mind

[teddywesworl]

my tendency to think through things best when I write them down VERSUS how much of a bad idea it would be to put my thoughts about something on the internet

[blindmagdalena]

Oh god, reading the previous anon's ask makes me think of how stressed Homelander's partner would be around his birthday. I mean, what do you get a man who literally can have it all? I feel like he wouldn't exactly hide his feelings very well if he really disliked the gift either. In your opinion, what kind of gift do you think Homelander would enjoy the most?

anything heartfelt, honestly. you're right, there's nothing he couldn't buy himself, but a thoughtful gift from someone who loves him? that's priceless.

you could bake him a very special cake, or even some Christmas cookies! you could also gift him a framed photo of the two of you two together.

the monetary value obviously isn't going to matter to Homelander. what will matter to him is the effort put into it, and why you got it for him. what made you think of him, and the inherent love that comes with that.

sure, he could buy himself an ornament for his desk, but it's not the same as you gifting him one because it reminded you of your trip together. you can buy him noise cancelling earbuds to wear because you know he can be prone to overstimulation, and even though he knows they won't really work for him, he's touched because you care. you thought about his needs, how to take care of and protect him.

ultimately, Homelander loves love. he wants to feel it, be bathed in it, be adored. the point of the gift isn't to get him something material, it's to show him that he's thought of, wanted, and cared for.

[soulinkpoetry]

If you’re trying to get away from someone or somewhere, you’re not home. Unfortunately for those who have migrated from their homeland to another country, they hold a sentiment of longing for both countries. When you’re in one for too long you long for the other. Immigrants know this feeling all too well.

.

.

[sprnklersplashes]

every time the idea of nuance is brought up regarding israel/palestine, it is almost if not completely exclusive to israel. irsael deserves nuance because its population is jewish and because of the holocaust-which was a horrific, unjustifiable tragedy that should've been prevented years before it happened. you'd be hard-pressed to find a supporter of palestine who doesn't think that. but this is used as an excuse to give israel all the nuance in the world, its occupation and aparthied and war crimes get chalked up to 'it's complicated'.

but this isn't the case for palestinians. palestine is painted in black and white, with all nuances denounced as antisemitism regardless of their context. if you point out that hamas would not exist without the israeli occupation, or that violence from the colonised is not the same as violence from the coloniser, or that the vast majority of hamas had loved ones murdered by the occupation, or question the right of israel as a state to exist when it was founded on the mass murder and displacement of the native palestinians, you are not afforded nuance. even if you say something that would anywhere else be deemed uncontroversial such as 'hamas does not represent all palestinians', it is shot down immediately. because palestinians don't deserve nuance.

the situation is not complicated, at least not as complicated as it is made out to be. violent resistance against colonialism will always be worthy of nuance more than colonialism and genocide will ever be.

[propheticpanickingnerd]

I feel like the homelander is transfem

All his problems would go away if he let himself experiment with his gender

[magnusmodig]

yeah i'm one spoon away from setting the ends of my hair on fire if i'm kindling for a little while at least i'll feel of use... promise me that you'll start where i end and i promise to give you everything that i am and it goes on, and on, and on... we'll go on and on and on in the end all i hope for is to be a bit of warmth for you when there's not a lot of warmth left to go around.

[homielander]

the most interesting character detail about maeve through which i have extrapolated at least half my understanding of her is that she prefers to be called maeve. i frequently see "maggie" pop up in meta and fic as her chosen name, but quite literally nobody calls her that, including (and most significantly) elena. elena is maeve's tether to her humanity and her refuge away from vought, yet even elena only ever refers to her as maeve. (and in season 2, we learn that maeve started dating elena before she joined the seven -- before queen maeve's popularity would have become so inescapable that she would feel compelled to introduce herself by that name.) it's especially notable that in her final scene, maeve refers to starlight as annie for only the second time, but she is still called maeve by both annie and elena.

here's what we know about maeve's life as maggie: she had a rocky relationship with her father whom she doesn't seem to speak to anymore, she's from a "cousin-fucker hick town" as described by homelander -- i can't imagine this place being terribly lgbt-friendly, and she generally lacks connection with anyone she would have known before becoming queen maeve. she doesn't have fond memories of this time of her life, and perhaps that extends to all associations with it, including the name maggie.

i tend to think that becoming queen maeve was, in many ways, self-actualizing for her. the act that garners her national attention and earns her a ticket to vought is a heroic one -- she breaks every single bone in her right arm to save a school bus from falling off a bridge. and i know madelyn says she is responsible for the mythos of queen maeve, but this character was still aspirational, and likely someone maeve wanted to live up to. in any case, this new identity gave her a purpose and tools to achieve it: she wanted to help people! by her own admission, maeve enters vought bright-eyed and hopeful, not far off from annie. (maeve is also one of the only supes in the seven not to know about compound v -- she doesn't strike me as religious but believing she's among the very few born with powers would have strengthened her internal drive to be a hero.)

it's for the same reason that i think maeve actually... liked having powers? of course she says otherwise in her last season, but season 3 maeve is cynical and weary from about two decades of dealing with vought and homelander's abuse. they've used her first as the token woman and then the token gay person of the seven. after growing largely passive to the brutality of the job, the flight 37 incident forces her to confront all of the violence she's witnessed and tolerated. she's given pieces of herself away and she loathes the husk of herself that's left. i don't find it surprising that she would want to relinquish every single connection to vought, including her powers.

assuring herself that she will be better off without her powers comes with an added benefit: she gets to distinguish herself from homelander, who would be lost without his powers. and i think she is eager to make this distinction in her mind because there are some uncomfortable similarities between their initiations into vought. the mantle of homelander allows him to exert agency for the first time in his life, just as the mantle of queen maeve endows her with purpose for the first time in hers. (crucially, none of his current circle call him john, either.) they both enjoy being the most powerful superheroes in the world, the unending public adoration, and (in my interpretation) each other. they're also both overwhelmingly lonely and they know it -- homelander teases her multiple times about how she has no friends with a bit more bite in every passing season, while maeve is keenly aware of his isolation and exploits his yearning for love pretty effectively.

maeve steadily grows disillusioned with her position at vought because she still has a moral code, suppressed though it may be. even so, she nearly relents to homelander's vision: that they will be lonely at the top but lonely together. she's pulled out of her miserable state of inaction by annie and elena. annie reminds her of what a hero should be (what she was, once); elena offers her a way out of vought, serving as maeve's light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.

she escapes that tower as maeve, not maggie. she rejects homelander's god complex which engenders his cruelty towards regular people and 'lesser' supes -- no one will call her queen maeve ever again, at least -- but it is still important to her to be a hero, and for better or for worse, she found that as maeve. i feel like she'd struggle to exist without her powers (possibly the self-awareness hasn't settled in yet) for all the reasons mentioned above. i like to think that eventually, she'll circle around to helping people and resisting vought however possible -- albeit on a smaller, more covert scale so she can continue living a peaceful life with elena.

[shinylyni]

Ahhhhhh no but seriously just like. all the comments on that video being all "omg they're so pretty" and admiring how cute/pretty/handsome/good-looking the girls are, meanwhile I'm crying because this is my first time being exposed to what queer culture looks like in China and I'm feeling connected to a homeland that I haven’t visited in over a decade with a part of the culture that was forever taboo for me to even participate in or even feel like I was a part of the few times I've visited. Like I have all these feelings of belonging while also acknowledging that this isn't really my culture, not really, I grew up in America after all and the queer culture here is so different, but I'm also Chinese and I see a little bit of myself there too. Like, these are also my people, you know? They are also family as much as the queer community in the US is also my family.

[leahcee]

read Hades Welcomes His Bride for the first time ever today and all day it's been plaguing me how much I feel like it parallels homelander and Becca's "relationship" in a way. Like the lines "And here you shall be my queen, my dear, the queen of all men ever to be born. No smile? Well some solemnity befits a queen." All I could picture was homelander talking to becca like they could be a family, as if that could ever happen after everything he's done. telling her how they could give Ryan the life he never had. But becca reminding him that Ryan has her which is the difference between him and homelander. How she never smiles when homelander appears (obviously) and acts like some savior to Ryan and becca, but she only smiles for Ryan's sake. "here is a room for your diversions. here I've set a loom and silk unraveled from the finest shrouds...such pictures you shall weave! such tapestries!" Vought setting becca up in this fake town under their watchful eyes, giving her everything they think she'll need in order to raise a more sane homelander in Ryan. giving her just enough to keep her busy but not enough to give her confidence to leave. "that is to be our bed. Our bed. ah! your hand is trembling! I fear there is, as yet, too much pulse in it" all I hear is homelander referring to ryan, becca's son, as his son or as their son. how he knows she fears him but also tries to stand up to him, but also doesn't push too much because she has her son to think of, not just herself. when he starts bringing stormfront around and becca knows that he's trying to replace her place in her sons life, trying to mold Ryan into him. but there's nothing she can do because she's a mere mortal with no powers being forced into a situation by an all powerful being and there's nothing she can do but try to make the best out of it.

[plasticfangtastic]

Kripke really woke up and decided to open his dumbass mouth and say that actually Cate didnt need to kill Shetty that was too far... that doing her thing was too far... all the adult humans probably knew of the woods and the crimes they commited in the woods... like mate why its killing child abusers bad? Why killing the humans who directly order the systematic abuse of children bad? That sweaty dude was imprisoned since 2012!!! sweaty dude was in jail for 10+ yrs for being "bad product"!!! all his abuse was by Shetty's order!! She deserves to die!!

Love how in the same interview he says Cate can still be redeem bcuz nobody its trully bad but he sure as fuck dont want Homelander to get any redemption even tho he its the biggest victim of Vought violent capitalistic greed... honesty i just want Homie to team up with Butcher to take down Vought bcuz killing Homelander will never fucking solve the issue, he its a symptom of a larger disease... killing HL achieve virtually nothing but masturbatory revenge feel good fantasy bcuz Vought will continue to abuse children... vought will continue to built Homelanders for profit... they do not care for the lives they destroy they just get upset that the lives they help ruin turn into bad product... they care for money not the mountain of bodies they made!

Heck i would not be surprise if we learn that they already building a new Homelander baby now that they cant use Ryan anymore... i mean how did HL knew he could IVF Maeve if he didnt get re-tested? For all I know they got his spunk in the freezer.

And yes I think Homie deserves to die... him and Butcher deserve to kill each other and HL deserves punishment but he should at least get his revenge against Vought... let him be the hero for once... i mean Kripke you say he agreed with Cate over the killing of the wood personel... Homie agrees that the woods were evil... that the way human treated them its evil... bcuz its PTSD inducing for him!! let him continue that train of thought plz... let him do the right thing even if its by accident.

Altho after watching a review from a Youtuber I like ("who has industry connections") saying they r plans of killing HL in S4... he better get a good death that takes down Vought with him... altho Grace has been plenty wrong in the past and by god i hope she is...

[blindmagdalena]

Homelander vs teddy was so goddamn funny for no reason. Like sir that is a baby tf !!

But then the way he still saved teddy from getting exploded in madelyn’s house 🥺 (… the bar is literally on the floor i know i know dont @ me)

YOU KNOW... personally... i don't think Homelander did save Teddy. i don't know how popular/unpopular this theory is, but it's said that Teddy was found in a field like two miles out, right? well, when we see Teddy in the supe orphanage, his ability is... teleportation. i think Teddy instinctively saved himself.