“Let Us Give Masculinity Back Its Flowering Wand Of Reciprocal Relationship With The Natural World.

Aphrodite Anadyomene

🌊 The goddess rising out of the sea 🌊

💙

Great hammerhead sharks have been observed swimming on their side to save energy while swimming.

Analyzing The Abilities of Characters From The Boys

-Le Finale-

🇺🇸Homelander🇺🇸

Thank you to everyone who sat by and waited for this grand finale, it truly means a lot to me! You’re the heroes, truly! I added Superman by Ivory Layne because I associate it with America’s #1 Supe, plus I wanted to plug one of my all time favorite 2010s throwbacks.

I think Homelander’s “Evil Superman” pitch is definitely the main draw of the franchise, but I wish he wasn’t always shackled to that identity. He acts as an introspective analysis of the true evil of corruption on a radical/political level. I mean, the man was birthed in a lab and raised on straight looping American nationalist propaganda. He was essentially being hypnotized by Vought to be an All-American boy, and yet he turned out exactly like America itself; overpowered, inescapable, and caked in far too much makeup.

Homelander/John’s wide range of abilities stems directly from the versatile torture methods Vought used on him in infancy in order to rig the results of the V and produce the most amount of abilities. For example, my assumption is they would drop him, along with other flying Supes, from high places, and if they managed to float for survival they would grow up to be able to fly at dazzling speeds. This is based on the number of trials he endured, such as the oven he would be placed in for hours on end. He’s now invulnerable, but he had to quite literally be forged through flame to be so.

In addition to his range of abilities, the episode of Diabolical that depicts Black Noir feeding him his lesson on optics makes his inability to swiftly dispose of those who show no fear all the more reasonable. When he’s viewed as the monster he’s always been seen as (the whole “you ripped out of your mother and beamed through the bodies of the doctors in the room while flying like a scene from the exorcist” thing) he’s incentivized to be what they expect of him, almost like how he was taught to be what the masses wanted from him. The careful crafting and hardwiring of a monster stays, even though he’s subverting Vought’s benevolent persona.

When a character shows indifference or truly just a lack of terror, he spares them, deeply yearning for genuine human connection with an individual who doesn’t recoil from his advance. Whether it was Madeline, Stormfront, or Maeve, they all proved themselves to be fierce women who he had difficulty letting go of. Madeline in particular managed to survive up until the exact moment she admitted her fear of him, to which he incinerated through her skull with his laser vision.

Even when analyzing how he spares Hughie, Butcher, Annie, or the rest of The Boys, Homelander has ample opportunities to fly over and murder them all. He could kill them all in broad daylight and get away with it, but whether he’s consciously aware of it or not, he fully needs humans on this planet who know the truth about him and refuse to be afraid. The alternative would be too boring, and as I could imagine, horrifying. He doesn’t want to be a king, we see into his psyche too frequently to know he hates himself. He truly hates what he sees in the mirror, and masks it with a veneer of egotism until he eventually breaks down again. He wants people unafraid to challenge him, otherwise he would have used one of his several powers to slaughter The Boys ages ago. You may call it plot armor, but I think John needs someone to go blow for blow with. Butcherlander

John never had the chance to be human. He was directed how to be a god, and given the power to match. While every part of me sees him as the monster he is, rape and murder included, I almost feel like killing him wouldn’t be the karmic serve fans think it would be. I agree with the sentiment that he should be stripped of his power and condemned to live an average human life without access to Compound V (I like to imagine they’ll just blow up Vought tower in the finale, but we’ll see). His scenes with Ryan almost make me believe that he wants to be human, but he can never do that as the supervillain he is today. Maybe if he could try out being a human, he wouldn’t have to try and escape his humanity.

Analyzing The Abilities of Characters From The Boys Pt. XII

🚹Jordan🚺

Jordan is, by nature, dichotomous. Their ability is a unique form of gendered shapeshifting which is implied to be a byproduct of their bigender identity. When we first meet Jordan, they’re snippy and selfish, focused solely on getting ahead and being applauded for their good work and impeccable scores. As the story goes on, you begin to reveal layers of insecurity and frustration that the world will only ever see them for their superficial identities.

When first introduced to Jordan, they were relaxed in their female form. Interestingly enough, this was most likely due to the fact that Brink knew Jordan was assigned male at birth, and accepted them regardless as both identities they present as. This, as I mentioned earlier with Dean Shetty’s master manipulation of Cate, was most likely the byproduct of a drawn out control tactic to keep Jordan’s success tethered to GodU, and to give Brink a guard dog in the event of…well, exactly what transpired in the first episode.

As we see while Jordan fights, their female form, the result of their own vulnerability typically used when comfortable or in moments of leisure, has the ability to propel people away with some form of telekinetic blast. This may be due to their own insecurities plaguing them with feelings of inadequacy. That initial desire to push people away manifests itself as the ability to do exactly that.

In their male form, they’re seemingly indestructible and super strong, being capable of being shot at point blank and trading blows with Luke and Sam, affirming that Jordan is both strong and versatile in combat.

When the V most likely kicked in, Jordan was probably going through puberty, as many other supes were when their powers manifested. Imagine recognizing that you were bigender and feeling the need to endure the bigotry of your surroundings in hopes of a better future while simultaneously wishing to shove people away. This dual nature manifested in their ability to visibly shapeshift, and yet their parents treat this as a burden, confused as to why Jordan doesn’t just stay a boy indefinitely.

Jordan’s gendered division is most likely rooted in their feelings of men being tough while women are guarded, but I believe that as Marie shows them that it’s possible to love both sides at once, we might see them use their powers interchangeably or even simultaneously.

H2O: Just Add Water: The girls.

It's an old tale

Digital Offering for Lord Zeus⚡️

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.

The Evermore Grimoire: Mermaids of the Seven Seas

The Atlantic Mermaids are a pod of mermaids who live in the stormy seas of the Atlantic Ocean and just like the Arctic Mermaids, have done so for centuries. They have beautiful tails that reflect the deep blue tones of the ocean they call home, and wear a variety of headpieces (such as tiara’s, crowns and diadems) made of shells found on the seabed. Harnessed with the power of Atmokinesis, the Atlantic Mermaids can conjure up a ferocious storm in an instant if anyone dares to underestimate them. Thus making the Atlantic Ocean a trecherous sea to venture in. They’re also incredibly loyal to their own kind, but only when it suits them. During the war between Mermaids and Mermen, the Atlantic Mermaids were the ‘saving grace’ thanks to their Queen who rallied together every member in the pod and created one the most brutal storms the Atlantic Ocean had ever seen. Despite the storm ‘turning the tide’ in the war, it also came at a great cost that changed the hierarchy within every mermaid pod forever. Including the relations within their own pod, resulting in some mermaids breaking away and forming a new pod elsewhere in the ocean. In spite of everything, these mermaids are  considered the most powerful because if another war ever arose their and loyalty would be instrumental in the survival of all Merfolk as well as their place within the magical world.

original artwork by Vlad Stankovic

Nobody ever loved me, ever loved me

Nobody ever loved me

Like she loves me

Nobody ever loved me, ever loved me

Nobody ever loved me

Like she tells me she does