Starlight 🌟

Rihanna in 2007 ･ﾟﾟ･｡ᡣ𐭩

Ep. 8 Spoilers (The Boys)

Rapid fire main feeling/takeaways

- While I’m deeply upset we didn’t get to see the hostile takeover like in comics, the ending scene gives me hope for a bizarre dystopian Season 5 with all super humans having dominion over America, especially with a Gen V S2 tie in.

- I was waiting to see Ashley’s mutation, assuming it would be some Marvel’s Medusa style hair manipulation judging how her skull started moving.

- Why is no one talking about Kimiko finally having a strong enough tether to Frenchie that she SCREAMED? She wanted this at the beginning of the season, and I’m glad they didn’t just ignore it for her character arc.

- I’m not surprised Vicky got killed, but it annoyed me that it happened when she was fully surrendering and her daughter was ultimately subjected to her same tragic past at Red River.

- Grace deserved it, sorta kinda. Why was she provoking a young boy who clearly can’t control his abilities by offloading every horrible thing about him to his face like that was going to yield something positive? I liked her, but the second that scene began I knew her fate was sealed.

- I really thought Firecracker was going to fully die from some overdose/disease because of the milk pills, but now I’m thinking that pretty much every supe that takes part in this New World Order are going to get killed by Butcher/the virus. Probably (better not be) Annie, Kimiko, or Ryan, and I’m assuming the gang from Godolkin would also find an antidote or safe haven as well.

Analyzing The Abilities of Characters From The Boys Pt. IX (Campbell Edition)

🚀Hughie🚀

Hughie’s honestly such a lovable character in my opinion, so seeing him get to shoot up with Temp V was so pleasureful for me.

While the first episode establishes he lost his girlfriend in an instant from A-Train running through her, he was left holding her severed hands on the sidewalk. He had been searching for a way from that point on to find out how to grab the people he cares about and instantaneously escape from danger.

This is where teleportation comes in. He’s capable of teleporting himself or anyone he’s holding onto away from a crisis, the same way he couldn’t do for Robin. He uses this to aid Butcher in Russia, Annie from Soldier Boy, and even Mindstorm that one time. In every scenario he’s squeamish while being made to fight, and instead opts to blink in and out, in a useful manner. His ability is inherently complimentary to another fighter, or at least his application of it is.

While he forgoes injecting himself with Temp V to help Annie fight in the S3 finale due to the lethal health effects of another dose, his newfound “ability” is supporting his significant other while she kicks ass.

👤Hugh Sr.👤

Hughie’s father had a minor role, and yet, analyzing his ability provides more clarification on the nature of Compound V’s effects on individuals.

After being resuscitated from brain death by Compound V, he was initially fine with no changes, until he discovered his ability to phase through solid objects. He walked through hospital walls, cutting through patients in a gory body horror scenario. As he states, his wife Daphne abandoned him with their child son, walking through Hugh Sr. like he didn’t even exist to her. He is now capable of mimicking the person who hurt him most, much like Butcher.

In the case of Maverick, Andre, and kind of Ryan, they all match their specific abilities of their supe fathers exactly. This is because they were all babies when they were injected/born with V. This may imply that had Hugh been injected and gained intangibility, and then had Hughie injected as a baby, Hughie would have mimicked Hugh instead of developing his own ability.

To make matters potentially even more fascinating, intangibility and teleportation aren’t entirely unrelated powers. Both include averting danger by supernatural escape means. While both can escape harm, Hughie can blink away from danger, while Hugh is forced to trudge through solid terrain, much like how when Daphne left, he was forced to endure the pain of her leaving. However, when Robin died, Hughie had to watch as everything ended in the blink of an eye.

Little late to the Percy Jackson fan art but I really wanted to draw the fight at the lighthouse

Analyzing The Abilities of Characters From The Boys Pt. VIII

🇬🇧S3 Billy Butcher🇬🇧

England’s debatably worst man alive, Billy Butcher experienced the loss of his wife after Homelander rapes her and Vought spirits her away to a hidden home for her to raise the bastard son of The Homelander. All the while, Butcher assumed she had taken her own life after the assault, and swore vengeance on Homelander ever since.

After shooting up with Temporary Compound V in S3, Butcher receives abilities reminiscent of Homelander’s, namely his iconic optic beams. Butcher inheriting the abilities of the man he hates most on this earth could very well stem from the fact that, at the time of injection, he believed that had he been The Homelander, had he shared a fraction of that strength, he could have protected his wife from him all those years ago.

Additionally, after being reunited with Becca in S2, she’s killed by Ryan’s optic beams in a freak accident involving an immortal nazi. Butcher is an envious, spiteful, miserable person, so him essentially duplicating the skill sets of the people who took Becca from him makes complete and utter sense, especially when him mimicking these abilities would ultimately make him even more self loathing, now that he shares something with the thing that killed the love of his life.

🦠S4 Billy Butcher🦠

After injecting himself with Compound V following his terminal illness diagnosis and being given a few months to live, Butcher develops the ability to seemingly project tendrils of cancerous material out from his body and use them as tentacles.

I believe this is indicative of him perceiving all the evil he’s done as spreading like his cancer. He’s infected and kept Hughie, MM, and Frenchie doing his dirty work despite their attempts to move on an live their lives, sure, but something the show fails to analyze is how Homelander seemingly raped Becca as a power move. Before meeting Butcher, Becca had worked with Homelander for years without any issues when she was an employee at Vought. Then a few days after he meets Butcher, he rapes her in a backroom to “assert his dominance”. Butcher may have understood this after obsessing over the tapes since 2011, and always assumed that his presence in her life ultimately led to its tragic end.

While S3 had Butcher trying to match Homelander’s might, S4 shows him embracing his own wickedness, all while viewing himself as being defined by his spreading evil he can now emanate out and “spread” to others.

H2O: Just Add Water S01E03 | The Secret Circle S01E02

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Analyzing The Abilities of Characters From The Boys Pt. XIII

🧲Andre🧲

In loving memory of the incredible Chance Perdomo, thank you so much for giving us not one incredible, generational ally and hero, but two: Ambrose and Andre.

Andre, the son of essentially this world’s Magneto, has the identical ability to his father. They both possess the ability to manipulate magnetism, which expresses itself as mostly bending metal to their will. This is a perfect example of how genetic factors influence the way compound V manifests in subjects, much like Maverick with Translucent.

Andre’s interesting to me, mostly because he’s what holds the friend group together, almost like his magnetism works on them as well. He drew Marie in and placed her in their orbit. He encouraged Jordan to go out with her, and was quick to console Cate after Luke’s death. He was the group’s heart in a way, which matches well with his power.

Additionally, the fact that he’s constantly under the pressure of his father, Polaris, to be the best at everything he does insinuates that his power has a downside. We find out that overexertion of his power results in potentially fatal brain damage. The source of his strength is also the source of his weakness, and yet, Andre chooses to defend Marie regardless in the S1 finale.

Magnetism can attract, propel, and in Andre’s case, crush him under the weight of his father’s expectations, almost like his father’s magnetism was interacting with his own. He was constantly expected to be one thing or another. He should have been the hero, saving the day and getting the girl. He should have lived* to take down Homelander. He should have gotten to Cate sooner. All of this is to say that maybe all he had to be was the true hero he truly was: a friend.

*I’m well aware nothing has been confirmed for his character following Chance’s passing, but I doubt they would recast a role like his given them only really having one season left for his character. I can imagine they kill the character off in an offscreen jailbreak that would be implied to have taken place after the Gen V S1 finale, and the characters have to grapple with his loss and potential sacrifice, but I’m also talking out of my ass right now.*

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