Kestrel

homelander wont love the deep in any sort of reciprocal or healthy way literally at all. homelander loves to be loved. he loves that he can ask the deep to jump and the deep will ask how high before the sentence is even over because the deep wants approval, needs it, like a fish needs water (i crack myself up).

and homelander...does not respect deep. but he does find him comforting the way someone would find a loyal dog comforting, and he'd also become weirdly possessive over him because of it because that level of devotion is literally all he wants.

and like, i guess someone w/ big fat titties who can breastfeed him but thats a different story altogether so moving on.

the fact is that homelander can say the most out of pocket, verbally abusive shit to deep and deep would still come back, tail wagging, which is fucking bleak. and guys, i think a major part of it is that deep believes all of the shit that homelander says to himm homelander calls him pathetic and deeps thoughts arent "wow thats so mean" theyre "omg he noticed chat are we cooked" because we know hes insecure, we know he loves validation, and we know that he is ALLERGIC to any sort of introspection.

he latches onto validation so violently because his self-esteem is non-existent and every compliment becomes a lifeline, and he endures the abuse from homelander because he thinks that everyone else is lying to him, homelander is telling the truth, and despite that, homelander is the one who stuck around. like its somehow reassuring.

and guys GUYS. homelander has a literal, LITERAL god complex, brewed from a childhood without love or boundaries or consequences for anything. hes a product and a weapon and as an adult that turns into people fearing him, profitting off of him and people appeasing him just to survive. all of that? to homelander, is just evidence to cite in his research paper of "Why I Am God and Better Than You and Why You Should Worship Me - an Essay by John" its not delusion its just deductive reasoning.

which is why deep pisses homelander the fuck off. because deeps submission is a weakness that homelander finds revolting and its also the way homelander thinks everyone should act towards him. homelander HATES weakness in everyone else because he hates it in himself, but deep validates homelanders worldview so fucking perfectly.

nobodys devotion to homelander ever feels like it should to him. theres always something behind it that doesnt make it pure. except for deep. and so homelander is sitting here thinking "why does everyone else resist??? why is this fucking loser the only one who gets it??"