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♯ 𝗙𝟬𝗖𝗞𝗦𝗨𝗣𝗘𝗦 ᝰ.ᐟ Private interpretation of WILLIAM ❛ BILLY ❜ J. BUTCHER from Amazon Prime's T.HE B.OYS. A blend of show, comics, and personal characterisation, with a focus on seasons one through four * FT. Terror the Dog, and [ both the real deal & the mind-parasite vers. of ] Joe Kessler .ᐟ.ᐟ

        ➙ 𝘾𝘼𝙍𝙍𝘿. 𝘾𝙊𝙈𝙋𝘼𝙉𝙄𝙊𝙉. 𝙎𝙏𝙐𝘿𝙔. 𝙋𝙍𝙊𝙈𝙋𝙏𝙎.

𝗔 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗦𝗜𝗦 𝗜𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗘𝗥𝗢𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗘𝗟𝗙, 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗜𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗗𝗘𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗢𝗡𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡. Government Dogs, the Propaganda Machine, and the Age of Advertisement. Moral Pestilence Given Shape. A David & Goliath Narrative. Anti-Heroism Rotting at the Bone. The Weaponisation of Grief, and Violence Mistaken for Purpose. Collateral, and the Ends Justifying the Means.

ADDITIONAL READING: On Kessler / The Entity. ➙ more tba.

Heat swells in the underbelly of the city like an overripe fruit split open, and left smeared on the sidewalk. The city's breathing out its own damp exhaust, subway breath, hot tar and old metal. Round and round, the routine has begun gnawing at him. The Bureau's been up his arse since the last op went south, per their report━━━Butcher would classify it as a certified success━━━and Campbell's called him at least three times since yesterday, undoubtedly on Neuman's insistence. His phone is firmly set to fuck off mode, but the irritation lingers all the same, a buzzing fly in his ear. The kid's got his heart set on this accountability mechanism bullshit, and Butcher doesn't have it in him to shatter the delusion. If nothing else, using their fuel, their files, their little badges that open doors is a plus; that had been the one advantage of the CIA's old mandate, too. But he could only sift through so much bureaucracy before he lost it. The rude miss ❪ @doryphore ❫ at his side, who'd nicked the fag out his hand, evidently had thoughts on that matter, too. 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗶 𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗽𝘀, ❛ Yeah, I’m a bitch. I knew that already. ❜

❪ @avasmess ❫ Annie deliberately ignores Billy while snuggling with Terror. She says that dog is a better human than his old man could ever be <3

It's a strange thing in a room, human connection. In the margins of the dirt and the grime and the action, at the edges of the mission, he often forgets the team exists outside of their operational value. It reappears, uninvited, in the small spaces between things. There is a violence innate in being witnessed, in being close enough that silence is no longer empty but inhabited. From the doorway, he watches Annie with Terror; traitorous little bastard that he is, tongue lolling while Annie scratches behind his ears, snub of a tail going, the whole thing. She doesn't seem to see him, and he takes the time to look her over. She's so bright, it's bloody irritating. Starlight exists as a counterargument to his anti-supe thesis. Butcher can feel the contradiction every time she opens her mouth, every time she takes a stance to fight for what she believes in, not against what she doesn't. [ It don't excuse what she is. ] But that pesky goodness in her is a fallacy he can't quite pin. There's no place to slot her amid the jumble of his shite worldview. And, Christ, he knows where he picked up that bad habit. He'd hated that about his old man most of all, the pisspoor attitude about life. The bastard could find rot in fresh fruit, spite in kindness, weakness in anything that didn’t bare its teeth back at him. Hated things simply because they existed within reach of his disappointment. Butcher had sworn, years ago, lying awake with split lips and a mouth full of copper taste, Lenny hiding at his side, that he’d die before turning into that kind of man.

The rage in him has grown carnassial teeth, a living arrangement of appetite burrowed in the mind, worrying at the soft meat of his thoughts day after day until everything comes away blood-warm and ragged at the edges. A bad dog under the old porchboards, froth stringing from bared gums. There are days where Butcher can feel it moving around inside him like a living thing ━━━ a half-starved thing pacing his ribcage, throwing itself against the bars whenever the scent of weakness drifts too close. For a soldier, an objective is like an oasis, and a starving man can make of his want whatever suits him. Give somebody long enough without water and they’ll kneel before a mirage; give a man like Butcher something to hate and he’ll start a war. Morals are funny like that. You only have them until you don't, and he's never pretended he had any to begin with. Through all of Mallory’s plots, he had never once laboured under the illusion that this was about justice. [ If it were, Soldier Boy would be back at the Kremlin, not in a hide-out Butcher's procured for him, betraying any last moral he might've held. ] @marvinmilks is not like him. For all his yapping and snapping, there’s something un-ruined at the centre of him. A general grudge is not enough to corrode the man's integrity, nothing seems to be. Butcher’s never never had the patience for decent men, either, yet he indulges Marvin time & time. There's a perverse delight derived from being anchored, being held back from crossing that final line he keeps approaching ━━━ He's a selfish man, and its a selfish want. Before he can take another step, 𝗠𝗠 𝘀𝗮𝘆𝘀, ❛ I nearly shot you, you know that? ❜ And he thinks: You should've done it earlier, mate. Too late now to turn back. Maybe this is the time he'll cross that line, and never come back from it.

❛ And I nearly gave a toss. Reckon we're both havin' an off day. ❜ The gnarled laugh sits in his throat, a bark swallowed. A bullet wouldn’t do him any more harm to his v-riddled body than the bat Marvin had taken to him, but Butcher is tempted to force his hand regardless, if it'll give him some catharsis. The thud of his boots is muffled by the bite in his tone as he steps forth with casual ease, ❛ Nearly's the story of ya. Nearly got your family, nearly walked away. I don't play like that, and you bloody know it. ❜

━━━ ON THE KESSLER HALLUCINATION.

The cigarette ember flares between his fingers, a small apocalypse, a tiny sun exploding. The little vial of green poison does that, saturates the worldview, tints every thought a shade of fuck it. That must be why he's tolerating the tedtalk. It never fails to catch him off guard, how small @queensupe looks when she's not plastered high and mighty on a billboard. Disavowing the Vought-brand regalia, chin tipped up toward him with that stubborn, fucking pride, she's still a menace beneath all that brooding. But all the flannel shirts and moping in the world couldn't scrub the supe out of her. The breed shows, even when she's pretending to be human, a warm flesh-body occupying the seat next to him. Still, he dangles the whiskey bottle toward her, across the no-man's-land of stained linoleum and shit decisions, the antithesis of an olive branch. Misery, company, and all that. 𝗠𝗮𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝘆𝘀, ❛ Fancy moral decisions aren’t my job. ❜