#blindmagdalena

Her supe power is that she can shapeshift into any feline. House cat, tiger, leopard, and even prehistoric cats because I want her to lay on Homelander as a polar bear sized saber. THE VISUALS.

Like Doppelganger, Stray fluidly shifts between forms in mere moments but unlike Doppelganger, these forms are all Stray. She can't transform into a visual copy of say, your pet cat.

Like Beast Boy, her animal forms are coded to her colors. She's a calico cat (surprise, surprise) if she's a house cat. A golden tabby coated tiger if she's a tiger. Basically all coat colors try to mimic orange, brown, white to some degree. If she's a lioness, it's a richer orangy hue instead of tawny.

I'd have to pin down the exact colors and make a coat pattern chart, but basically every coat is a little off on what the default is for wild cats. Enough to make you go, 'hmm that seems odd' more than seeing a big cat in a weird spot would. The other thing that's constant is her eye color, same green eyes in all forms. So her hair color / skin color reflect her cat coat patterns and her eye color is consistent, basically.

The main perk is that her supe power scales with form. She's a house cat? Well- That house cat could theoretically blast herself through your skull like Jamie the hamster and come out fine on the other side. This scales, so you get a jaguar biting you it's no longer a 1,500 PSI bite but idfk, biting through steel beams. The bigger Stray is, the more durable and the more damage she can do. Get her big enough and she could bite through Homelander's limbs. :D

The downsides are:

Stray is a perfectly normal, squishy person when not in a feline form. Very fragile, don't let near other Supes when she's a person.

She can't stay in feline form forever. Like Doppelganger, it hurts if she keeps a form for too long but she's been trained (forced) to endure it. After 24 hours, she starts to become debilitated from the pain but can push on depending on desperation level. Regardless, she'll be pretty useless quick.

Stray can be locked out of shifting or locked in a form with a metal band around her neck/wrist/ankle. Say, iron does it because uh- It's the most stable element or something which blocks Stray's atoms from doing whatever the fuck they do to reform her into various kitty cats. Having a power lock is fun for situations.

The backstory is that around the same time of Homelander's debut, Stan Edgar wanted to have a contingency plan. I don't know the exact timeline, but I assume Victoria Neuman was adopted by Edgar around that time as his backup plan for Homelander. Stray was picked up for the same reason, except she was more a creature to get locked away and trained to hate Homelander.

Her SUPER TRAGIC backstory is that she had a normal life, save for being a supe, until she turned 18. Then Vought snatched her up with the excuse of that binding Supe Contract, so her family was none the wiser that through daughter was shipped off to a lab. Meanwhile, Stray was fed some story that her family DIED HORRIBLY because of Homelander with her hatred of him encouraged subtly. Enough to make a bitch pissy, but not rampage through the lab. (That or they kept a bitch collared a lot)

Stan Edgar gets thrown in jail and Stray gets lost in the shuffle, forgotten for the most part until her file is dug up or The Boys are tipped off about something strange over in a SUPER SECRET LAB that Butcher is apparently good at finding, given how he found The Woods in Gen V.

The Boys get a new pet cat as they assume Stray is a suped up animal, since they find her collared and unable to shift. I get to write a few cute drabbles of Stray being tormented as people coo over her as a kitty cat until someone takes her collar off. Then the idiot is hell bent on revenge, which suits Butcher just fine.

She infiltrates Vought Tower by being picked up as a stray cat (haha) by Ryan Butcher. Cue Homelander having beef with a cat who keeps stealing his son's attention. Also, that cat keeps looking at him weird. More excuses to write cute fluff with Ryan getting a pet he can cuddle but can't kill. She chills in Vought Tower with Ryan, getting rather attached to the boy because he is SUCH A SWEETIE PIE.

Stray goes to chomp Homelander's head off eventually, hunting him down like prey and wrecking his shit because I just want to write Homelander being afraid. There's something fun about having Homelander hunted by a bigger predator, something primordial and feral. c:

Ryan intervenes before Stray eats Homelander and she pisses off for a bit. Also, probably dealing with a Compound V high given how much V must be in Homelander's blood.

Something something, Homelander researches the bitch who almost ate him. Figures out her weakness and there's probably MORE DRAMA with them fucking with each other. I haven't banged out the details but these lil shits will be toxic as fuck, but since Stray is a strong supe he'll want her for his supe army. Homelander even shows Stray that her family is alive and she's all, "Well fuck. Uh, my bad bro?"

Ultimately, Stray will waver between hating Vought for what they did, having some loyalty to members of The Boys for their kindness, but loyalty to Homelander and Ryan for similar. She's not a good person so she could go for the DESTROY VOUGHT or SUPE SUPERIORITY side on a coin flip.

She's just a character I want to put in situations within The Boys universe. (Sexual situations)

I want tiger!Stray sprawled out on the floor while Ryan uses her as a living lounge chair as he does his homework.

Bickering between Homelander and Stray. Stray being a VERY FUCKING ANNOYING CAT at Homelander before he knows she's a supe.

Therapy cat for Kimiko. 🥺

Butcher being a jerk and dubbing her 'Moggy'.