The Lion’s Bride

⚠️ PLEASE READ BEFORE PROCEEDING:

This blog contains fantasy content that may be triggering to some people, so please tread lightly.

-⛔️ Minors: This is a NSFW blog, so if you’re under 18, please DNI. This blog is highly sexual and intended for adult audiences only. Likewise, anyone who sexualizes minors, real or fictitious, is not welcome.

-Yes, I do actively work in mental health, but I am not a provider in my personal time. I am more than happy to listen, but I cannot provide clinical guidance or advice.

Requests: Open for character headcanons

Link to my AO3 account: X

I saw someone on Insta make an edit of what should have gone down, with Homelander just going straight-up, full-on scorched Earth and the show becoming basically a horror movie where Homelander is an actually terrifying figure. I think that would have been a lot cooler, and would have been more closely tied to the vibes from the first season.

And I know everyone loves the scene with him begging like a fucking baby but…that just reminds me that he’s a manchild who never really left that torture chamber at Vought. It wasn’t satisfying to me to see him die; what would’ve been more satisfying would have been to see him de-powered and beaten up, and then…idk. Jail? Psych hospital? Anything would’ve been more intriguing to me than him just whimpering, begging, and getting stabbed in the head…

And I get it. He’s the villain. He’s not intended to be sympathetic, and he’s basically just Trump (except that even Antony said he wanted to emphasize his tortured backstory to humanize him more and remove him further from just being a literal Trump parody). Like, I’m sure 99% of the fans loved seeing him sniveling and pathetic before he died. I just perhaps don’t see the point in giving him a tragic backstory, only for the writers to expect you to feel happy as a clam when he dies in such a pathetic way. May as well have just leaned fully into him being an irredeemable villain with a rich white family background.

Maybe it’s just because I work with psych patients (some of whom have been in jail and done some awful things—which is obviously different and taken in a real-life context, which changes things), but the way it was handled bothered me. I never hated his character. He did a lot this season that made me dislike him more than previous seasons, but I never hated him. So it wasn’t enjoyable for me to watch that. It just felt hollow and sad and cringey.

It probably didn’t help that they had that scene where he got patted on the shoulder and was shown to not kill someone for once. I thought they were building up to a semi-redemption with that—not like a full-fledged one, but more nuance to his character and his end? Idk. I feel like they shouldn’t have included that scene this season if the writers wanted me to be happy about the way they did his death…

I would’ve rather seen Vought be taken down, because are we forgetting that they’re the biggest villain here? The ones who started Supes to begin with, made Homelander, and who have profited immensely off of all the pain it’s caused everyone? Why act like everything is hunky-dory because the insane puppet-head lunatic guy was killed, when the corporation that started it all and tortured him is still standing?

Also…just to be clear…I’m not defending him. Homelander is evil. That’s a given. It’s a fact, and anyone who thought he was the good guy probably needs to have a psych evaluation completed on them. That being said, I still felt utterly disappointed with how his death was handled, and tbh would have preferred them to have leaned less into the Trump comparisons and made him more of his own character with complexity. I guess it’s just harder for me to hate villains who aren’t 100% black-and-white Bad (e.g. Voldemort).

This season overall made him feel more one-dimensional to me personally, and I wasn’t a fan of the religious psychosis aspect. It would have been more intriguing to me to see him snap in other ways instead of suddenly deciding that he’s God (which—they also built it up as if Oh Father did something to trigger that in him? And that he was manipulating him? But apparently not? I thought that would have made more sense tbh, to explain the sudden religious fixation).

This is all very messy and not coherent or structured so I apologize, I’m just dumping out my thoughts all at once. I’m just…idk. This show had such potential in the beginning, and they wasted so much of it on toilet humor, sex jokes, and gross-out gags to shock the audience, when they could have spent that time actually developing the plot and the characters into something well-rounded. Hell, if it was the budget that was the issue, then just give me shitty effects. I’d rather watch a show like Doctor Who with horrid effects than see a show sacrifice its full potential in order to make its few effects look cool.

Idk. It was so bad that I was literally hoping for a “psych! It was all a dream!” moment. As cheesy and horrible as that would have been, I honestly would have preferred it over them killing him like that.

And these are just a few of my Homelander-specific thoughts. Don’t even fucking get me started on the rest of the show and characters. I want to again reiterate that my thoughts and feelings are quite different in a real-life context, but in this particular piece of fiction, this is just how I feel.

And now that I’ve suddenly been pummeled upside the head with the Down Bads…

Soldier Boy is obsessed and in love with a fucking Nazi.

Homelander’s sexuality has been so fucking all over the place and inconsistent. He starts off seeming like the stereotypical playboy. There’s that deleted scene where Maeve literally reminds him that they broke up because he couldn’t keep it in his pants, which obviously shows he was cheating on her. And then he raped Becca, so obviously he just kind of fucked everyone he wanted without consequences.

Aside from Stillwell. But their relationship is a whole other can of worms that I don’t feel like opening right now lol. It’s the one exception that somehow still makes sense for him sexually despite him also coming across as a playboy in the beginning.

And then things just get…confusing. He starts to come across as a guy who isn’t all that interested in causal sex, and more so wanting a deep, possessive, unhealthy obsessive relationship. The way they portrayed him, I couldn’t possibly see him cheating on Stormfront. He was too infatuated. So he went from cheating bastard to loyal puppy, I guess? And it’s clearly not just about sex and her beauty, since he still cares about her even when she’s a half-dead burnt corpse.

And then they add Firecracker. And at first when she’s all “anythaaaang” he seems kind of flustered by her. And then later gets to be utterly disgusted and repulsed by her. Which, if he isn’t interested in appearances, I suppose makes sense, since she’s hella desperate and annoying. But I did find it odd that he apparently either 1. Legitimately thinks Firecracker is ugly—which, HOW?? That actress is fucking hot! Or 2. Doesn’t have immediate attraction sexually unless he knows someone personally. Like…Demisexual.

But NOW they’re trying to reel it all back and say that he’s not at all interested in (or even repulsed by?) sex. Which is such an insane contrast to the first couple seasons to me. He obviously has had sexual attraction and an interest in sex before, so I don’t know where the angle came from or who decided this was the right direction to take.

Nothing against asexuals or anyone along that spectrum, of course. But I think, if anything, he seems more Demisexual to me—at least in the newer seasons. But then with all the hints they kept dropping (doesn’t get his dick wet even though he easily could, apparently did not care at all about having some hot woman suck him off, etc.), I was really confused. Especially since they JUST had an episode where Homelander claimed that Becca “came onto ME,” suggesting he wasn’t repulsed by the idea and more than likely was the one to initiate it, since it was an assault.

I want to preface this by saying that I do not like her character, and was pissed when she chose to turn on the people who raised her for the sake of an idol. We also can’t forget that she had sex with a minor, and has consistently said and done awful things.

That being said—that was brutal, dude. I never understood his hatred toward her and lack of sexual attraction. If anything, she seemed to be exactly what he should want—loyal to a fault, obsessed with him, doing everything he wants and worshipping him.

But then, that scene… I don’t know why it stung me so much, because I really loathe her character… Maybe it’s because she was some fat kid who Starlight bullied, and because she went on to be so desperate for love that it kind of hit home a bit for me, I guess? She was definitely over-the-top and annoying, but the fact that she was willing to do *anything* for him and truly did sacrifice everything, and it was never enough, just like she said.

And what fucking right does he have to get upset at her for fucking Soldier Boy?? I get that he feels offended that she isn’t 100% focused on him, but what should he care? He acts like he doesn’t give one single solitary shit about her, so idk why it would then bother him if she had sex with someone else, when he was clearly never intending to do that with her.

His face here when he screams, his voice, the animalistic roaring shit he’s doing?