how do you think homie would react to reader breaking up with him because they have very different morals (homie kills people, ik he's babygirl but he does just brutally kill people, reader is a pacifist)
-bree(sorry for multiple asks in short time :P)
cw gaslighting, imprisonment, manhandling. no more mr. nice homelander.
"Fine, listen, listen, if it means that much to you, I won't do it anymore," Homelander says, hands lifted placatingly. The way he says it makes it sound like he's doing you a favor. Like you're overreacting to a mild infraction.
You stare, mouth agape. "This... This isn't some bad habit. You kill people."
"Yeah," he agrees, a slight strain creeping into his voice. "Yeah! Okay. And? Lots of people kill people. And typically, I only kill people who're also killing people."
"Typically," you echo, at a loss. How can he be so flippant about this? It's like he hasn't heard a single word you've said. "You don't care. At all."
"Why should I care? Why should you care? It's not like I'm killing people you like, or even know," he says, his exasperation with you intensifying. "But you love me. So just... Cool off, alright? Sleep on it. Before you do something you'll regret."
The shift in his voice when he says that runs a chill up your spine. "Are you threatening me?"
"What?" Homelander laughs. "No! Of course not. Babe, listen to yourself. C'mon, I know you're upset-" he moves to take your hand, but for the first time, you yank it from his reach, crossing your arms.
His hand hovers in the space yours had been for a moment, his eyes locked on the same spot. He inhales a slow breath, his fingers curling into a fist before dropping back to his side.
When he looks at you, his gaze is bereft of any playfulness. Your denial of him has flipped a switch in him that you've never seen before.
"You're tired," he says, voice set low. Any traces of the lighthearted pretense from earlier has been dropped. "It's late. You have a lot to process. So, we are going to put this aside for tonight. You are going to come to bed with me, and we'll talk about it in the morning, when you're calm."
"I am calm," you tell him, refusing to let him make you feel like you're the one being unreasonable. "Please move. I already told my friend I'm on my way," you lie. You wish you had. You wish you realized sooner you would need to.
Homelander had always been so utterly devoted to you. He hung on your every word, met your every whim, loved you so thoroughly that he made you feel like his entire world. Only now have you realized the dangers of that kind of love.
His mouth twitches. "Which friend?"
You begin to answer, wanting to give validity to your fiction, but an awful thought occurs to you. Would he hurt them?
"It doesn't matter," You reply instead, clutching your overnight bag. "I need space, and I don't want you coming to me before I'm ready. Please, move," you say, voice wavering. He was making this so much more painful than it already was. You do love him, but he's making you feel like you barely even know him.
Homelander taps his hands on his thighs, considering you. After a prolonged silence, just before you open your mouth to speak again, he claps his hands together. "Alright. Sure," he says, stepping forward. You step backwards. "Door's right there."
You're immediately relieved, but there's a nagging feeling in your gut. "Thank you," you say softly, adjusting your grip on your bag. "I'll call, okay?"
Homelander offers a sideways nod, seeming... resigned. You feel the guilt of it weigh heavily, and for a split second, you question yourself, whether what you're doing is right or fair. You have to steel yourself before your resolve falters. You need time away from him to collect yourself, and figure out what to do about the man you, as it turns out, know very little about.
Just as you pass him, you feel a sudden grip on your arm, and in a flash you're spun around, stumbling back into the penthouse. You stare wide-eyed for a moment, turning back around.
Poised exactly as he had been before, Homelander stands in front of the door, hands on his hips. His brows lift slightly. "Well?"
Your heart is racing now. "What are you doing?"
"Go on," he says, ignoring your question. "Door's right there."
Anger rolls through you in a heated wave. "I'm not playing this game with you," you say, moving to shove more forcibly passed him this time, but once again he catches you with a hand on your wrist, spinning you around with such ease, you may as well weigh nothing at all. Yet again you stumble back into the penthouse, tears welling in your eyes as you round on him.
"Stop it! Get out of my way!"
"Door's wide open, babe. All you have to do is get to it, and you can leave," he says, voice perfectly relaxed, devoid of any passion or empathy.
With a frustrated cry, you hurl your bag at him, and full on sprint towards the door. You get closer this time, but just as you reach for the knob, Homelander takes you by your shoulders and spins you right around. Your own momentum carries you further in. You barely catch yourself from falling, letting go a sob that's equal parts rage and heartbreak.
Who is this man?
This time, you throw yourself bodily towards the door, screaming your distress, your anger. You do it again and again and again, and every time, Homelander spins you right back around. On the final attempt, as he once again redirects you, the force of your own momentum hurls you to the ground.
"Do you get it yet?" Homelander asks, cocking his head to the side, checking to see if you're picked up on this lesson in futility.
"You don't call the shots here. You don't get to just decide we're done. Relationships go two ways, sweetheart," he says. That petname used to give you butterflies. It sounds sour on his tongue now.
You hear him sigh, closer to you now.
"Didn't think you'd be that stubborn. But I guess I've always loved that about you when it wasn't pointed at me, huh?" He asks, a playful little lilt slipping back into his voice.
You struggle when he scoops you up, you make an animalistic noise of pure aggravation, but it's as fruitless as ever. Homelander is both an unstoppable force and an immovable object, his grip on you like steel. He cannot be stopped, or even hindered, as he carries you towards the bedroom.
He sets you down on the bed, and out of pure unthinking fury, you raise your hand to slap him across the face. The strike lands, but Homelander doesn't so much as twitch. Your hand smarts, you may as well have slapped a brick wall. You clutch your wrist, letting go another sob. It aches immediately, frail in comparison to his unyielding frame.
Cupping either side of your face, Homelander swipes away your tears with his thumbs, watching you impassively. There's patience in his expression, though it looks stretched thin.
"I know you're upset," he says, an echo of earlier, as if picking up right from where he'd left off. As if nothing of the last twenty minutes had even happened. "But we'll get through this. And hey, hey, I'm not even mad at you, okay? Because that's what it means when you love someone. You forgive them."
You feel numbed by your own plethora of tumultuous emotions, strung out and exhausted. You close your eyes, unable to stomach the loving way he's gazing at you. He kisses your forehead, wringing a weak, hiccupped little noise out of you.
"That's my girl. I love you more than anything. You know that, right? That I would never do anything to hurt you?"
No matter how gentle his hold on you is, it's inescapable. You have no choice but to face him, bleary as he is through your tear-welled eyes. Unable to push an answer through the tightness in your throat, you just nod.
"That's right. Of course you do. Because if I wanted to hurt you, I would have. It would have been easy, huh?"
Those words break something in you. You lose whatever bit of composure you had built back up, and you begin to sob anew, an agonized sound.
Homelander's expression twists. He's never liked seeing you cry. He's also never been the source of it.
"Shhh, shhhh, hey, it's alright. You're okay. I would never let anything happen to you," he says, as if he wasn't the very thing happening to you in this moment. He kisses your forehead again, your tear-streaked cheeks, and finally your lips.
You don't have any fight left in you. Not against the press of his lips, and not against the way he brings you under the covers with him, clothes and all.
He pulls you against his chest the same way he has a hundred times before, as if this is any other night that the two of you have fallen asleep in each others embrace.
You hug your arms tight to your chest, crying hard, while he rubs your back, hushing you. Comforting you, as any good boyfriend should.
"It's alright. I've got you," he says, his arms an oppressive force around you. "I've got you."
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hi.... i'm just a poor boy . who does not know the loam lore. would you be willing to share.... a summary.... (so curious i am a loam enjoyer)
oh my gosh hi griff..! oh there is so much to tell... i will h ave no choice but to put this under a readmore. the shortest answer is that he is my character of 3+ years in @jawsandbones homebrew dnd campaign and he is like a son to me. but to start off with baby pictures:
LOAM was born 52 years ago in a city called TILDEN, which is blocked off overland by a CURSED* SWAMP that creeps closer every year.
*Misremembered and only Recently Re-Contextualized Major Historical event
His mom is a shy, worried, and loving woman named Bayla - she's a druid and sells medicinal mushrooms of all sorts. His dad is an unwaveringly positive (but incredibly serious) mason named Uttara who proudly works on all sorts of projects around the city, especially major infrastructure. Yay stoneworkers!
(Because fantasy lifespans are strange and somewhat silly to me I just imagine Firbolgs to be stuck in their mid-20s existential dread until they're like at least 150. The backstory part of this spans literally 51 of his 52 year s of life. he's so young)
He got equal enrichment from time spent in nature with his mom as from time spent in the city with his dad. His nickname in the Tilden Firbolg community To This Day is "Always With Questions" - a kind of affix to differentiate him from any other Loams. He may not know much but he really would like to find out, please!!!! He sees a lot of beauty in the natural world, but his idea of what's natural is skewed somewhat by the uh, Curse. He once fell through some algae into a deep body of water and had a very fun memento mori experience as a kiddo (beautiful golden sunbeam shining onto a silty skull)
He got the name Loam very young from his interest in both his parents' work, which lead to him learning about soil types and uses in gardening and construction aklfhglskg. Loam was important for both jobs so he (in guess-what-I-just-learned little kid fashion) told everyone who would listen about it. The association STUCK and he's Loam now :].
His birth name is actually Rahara! but that's secret knowledge only his bestest friends and Tzip and some scarycool important NPCs know.
He loves beasts and magic and plants so much. And on the flip side he also loves and is fascinated by architecture and engineering. He never got any like, higher academic schooling or whatever, but had many many different apprenticeship type training relationships from his parents, other tradespeople in the city, from the senior rangers etc etc.
Small break to plug @jawsandbones lore packets for the Quarter Cities (including Tilden), Scarabae, and the overall campaign setting!!!! I'm just gonna talk about stuff without adding too much context of my own because AAA WORD COUNT!!!
The hole in Loam's ear was brought about by a shit ass Tilden local trying to tear his earring off him, since he'd bought it from a foreign merchant from a city Tilden/the Quarter has historically warred with. Loam's always been open minded and deeply curious about other cities, due to how isolated the bog is. Any visiting merchants are sources of wonder!!!! Even though he only bought the one hoop earring from the Quietus merchants (Mirjam and Mihail, mother and son!), after the ice was broken he stayed by their stall the rest of the day and talked about all kinds of things, and befriended Mihail!
Loam trained as a ranger as soon as he was old enough to do so!!!! He saw it as the next logical step past what his parents would be able to show him and was incredibly eager to get hands-on experience in the wilds. He met his first ever boyfriend among his peers there!!! Bragi... he has had many lovers and situationships in Tilden since, BUT only recently feels comfortable trying monogamy again after meeting Tzipporah.
Bragi unfortunately died badly to a creature in a traumatic backstory incident that left young Loam super fucking bereft and hyper aware of how easy it is to die. (Big monster attack + group of trainee rangers accompanied by a few more senior rangers + chaos and bloodshed. Loam carried Bragi to safety and tried resuscitating him but he was already gone. The experience made him uncomfortable with the idea of being in a defined, monogamous intimate relationship for the next like. 19 years. He felt like he got ripped in half!)
After the ranger's guild recovers from THE CREATURE ATTACK, Loam meets his close friend, Reece, a fellow ranger and Kenku (she looks like a masked shrike)!!!
He gets his septum pierced by the same visiting merchants from Quietus a few years after Bragi's death. It's a very important moment for him, where it feels like he can finally start to let himself change and grow beyond that event. He also spends more and more time in the city, away from the more rural/overgrown districts, and chases a love for the arts and partying and people, where he meets Kallirhoe (human, not a even a classed bard but like. an indie musician. an eboy if high fantasy had eboys. a tattooed twinkish fellow. you know the type)! They are very good friends who also have sex. Many days spent waxing poetic about THE BIG WIDE WORLD and how they'll never get to see it. (Spoiler: He sees it)
Loam gets into tarot as a hobby, and makes his own deck in a very scribbly freehand style with ink and charcoal!!!! he's slowly replacing them with more Worldly artwork - the deck he left home with was very. Tildencore
Many good years of being a party girl who has to go work a construction job tomorrow and then go be a ranger at 6. A rich and storied life. AND THEN THE GAME TIMELINE STARTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A path Through the bog has recently finished being built by Dagda, the Southern representative to the other Quarter Cities, making more trade possible overland, and making local tensions go even crazier. Also there are strange Awful Huge Scary Monsters appearing WORLDWIDE, so the Directions and the Three Kings of Scarabae and the remote island of Geest (ADRA'S HOME!) and the mysterious magical Widow's Wood are all like "STOP WAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING RN". Trials are held in the Western city of Dina to appoint FOUR TEAMS OF FOUR to help defend against the new threat. Loam is like. Well I've gotta fucking do that. I've got to try. If I'm not chosen, at least I've set foot outside. He has a fight with his mom about this, because she is terrified she will lose him, like she lost her mother in a previous conflict when Scarabae was occupying the Quarter, before Loam was born. He stands firm and his dad has his back, and ultimately he leaves with both their blessings, but his dismissal of his mom's feelings weighs heavy on him the longer he's away from home. (He has a big cry and reconciliation about this when he is next able to come home.)
I'm clapping and cheering and skipping joyfully because now he HAS MET HIS BESTEST, DEAREST, CLOSEST FRIENDS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD: ADRA ILSA AND TALEE!!!!!!! I have to be so careful now because we have no joke hundreds of pages of notes. I cannot read that shit on google docs mobile app. We are approaching session one hundred and fifty of this game. They love each other so fucking much. THEY ARE THE INFORMATION GATHERERS!!! A PARTY OF SLEUTHS!!!
He also has his meet-cute with Tzipporah at the trials, which in hindsight is hilarious, because of the whole, "Tzipporah was sent to the trials as a spy (by the very people responsible for the giant awful monster crisis) and immediately pegged Loam for an easy mark to get information from" thing. And he was 100% correct. But a lot has to happen before that gets revealed. They took a nice night walk and write each other big long letters. And Loam tells him soooooo much <3
At one point while exploring a wizard tower he attunes to a lightly cursed ring and forgets what his parents look like, like their likenesses are Gone from past and recent memory. Which is a big thorn of homesickness that he writes to them about. He has a big cry and stares at them both for a LONG time when he next sees them.
Also they save an orphaned Kenku from some bandits and now Loam has a little shoulder-sniper named Bubby. We have a son. A perfect little crow son who is really good at killing, with arrows. He hides things in Loam's hood regularly
Other major things include ummm umm Loam's TWO deaths, one during a dungeon-rescue type scenario in a room that was Flooding and full of Phantoms and also a charmed Druid (Feyan, good friends now) wildshaped into a big scary water snake. He was hurt bad and (comedically) levitated so he wouldn't DROWN but then got Phantom Speared right through the torso. Second one was because Tzip's evil half brother Vences was like, mad at him for being a good influence on Tzipporah and interfering with the spy duties. Chill touch so no healing + dagger in the ribs! Ow. Also the reveal that Tzip was a spy was happening like, simultaneously here so we were yowling and screaming. (Well. Talee and Co had their long time hunches about this. Loam and I had turned a beautiful blind eye to all suspicious activity)
ANYWAY HIS DEATH SCARS LOOK LIKE A COMET ABOVE HIS BELLY!!!! The spear scar made a patch of his fur turn white (front and back), and the dagger scar is its crude tail!
I am skipping over so many plot revelations i. This is just the Loam Cut. and it's not even all of it.
His buzzcut was for emotional superstitious reasons!!! He cut it after Death 2 and Tzipporah getting taken against his will back into Evil Gang. Loam's mom has a lock of his hair at home now. ALL THIS TO SAY TZIP IS OKAY, NO LONGER SPYING, WE RESCUED HIM AND RIPPED A MASK OFF HIM AND SAVED HIM FROM GETTING HIS MIND EXCAVATED ! SO LOAM IS GROWING HIS HAIR OUT AGAIN!
The deaths of his close friends and their allies have also been. insane for him to process. To return someone to life in this setting u need to like. entreat a Titan. plead on the deceased's behalf and offer something up for the chance to revive them. (NO player spells like revivify. house rule) So interacting with these entities he sees as like Both forces of the natural world AND of huge religious/cultural importance regionally. And to have their requests be HEARD? He loves magic he loves Titans. And the plot is unfolding in such a way that scares me so bad. He loves his titan (The Curious Spear) SOOOO MUCH he has like the foundational belief that it can see through his eyes. Even if not true it motivates him to always seek understanding of strange new things.
Oh my god I didn't even talk about his multiclass into druid. He's a druid also. Circle of the Stars!! As a navigational point. He loves them. He loves space. He loves geography and regional interpretations of constellations. He used to just do freehand observations but truly became dedicated to charting the skies of every place the party travels to, after Tzipporah gifted him a grid-lined journal <3 <3 <3 STARRY FORM!!!!!!
His awe and inspiration and hunger for knowledge is the well he draws magical power from. My Boy is thematically bound up in the soggiest parts of this earth and also the unknowably distant stars above and I'm normal about it (lie) (There is a new and scary Third Thing rising which is the space between. I <3 Void). I know i draw him beige and green but his like, character colour theme is. Dusk to me. Gloaming. When the world is lit like a dream <3
In summary. In conclusion. He and Adra and Ilsa and Talee (and the rest of the Four of Four) are trying to prevent Global Disaster of an existential scale never before seen and are being very brave about it.
Loam wants to understand everything about Everything. Because understanding is love. Unfortunately there are hostile resentful and vengeful forces making this hard to do. Most recently by saving a city we Unmade a magically sustained centuries-old library. And we haven't had time to like fully let that sink in. Because of the horrors of war and being Four of Four means responding to emergencies and protecting cities as best we can against a foe that was forgotten by history until like, 10 months ago. Less, even. I hope this is anything. I hope u are his friend now too because he is yours
good lord how could i forget. His gender is male in such a way that he does not give a shit about it. He's one of the girls. He's genderless. Like a knight. His sense of identity is built on Living Laughing and Loving.
his personal goals are 1. to uncurse the bog in such a way that the wrongs committed by Tilden historically are brought to light and righted, 2. to get super married to Tzipporah and build a house together, and 3. to somehow, eventually, through great teamwork and effort, cure(?) the dreadful lingering soul plague on the island of demeter. HUMBLE! OH and to make a finished star chart covering the entire planet. humble.
thank u for reading here are his current stats
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