Phoenix Takaramono

One of my favorite things about writing a time-travel Fix-It AU? Giving Billy a front-row seat to moments he never got to see in canon. That means a proper redux of Homelander confronting his childhood tormentors—except this time, William Butcher is there witnessing every second of it. In honor of July 4th being Homelander’s birthday, have a special snippet from a future chapter (rough notes and all) in ‘Simple Causality’—a scene that won’t appear until much, much later in the story—as a little treat on behalf of our softest, wettest birthday boy. 🇺🇸🎂🦅 Cheers!

Homelander leaned closer until his lips hovered beside Barbara’s ear. “I’m not some mutt you can teach to play fetch and roll over. I’m a god, and you actually believed you could dictate what a god was allowed to think and feel.” A faint smile spread across his face. “Funny. Your little experiment backfired worse than anybody at Vought could ever have imagined.”

His gaze wandered across the laboratory where he had spent his childhood, lingering on the Bad Room before drifting toward the adjacent thermal chamber. “You and every one of those sadistic bastards devoted your lives to creating the perfect weapon. Every restraint. Every experiment. Every humiliation. Every single cruelty that was supposed to strip away another piece of John until nothing remained except The Homelander: Vought’s obedient masterpiece, forever chasing another scrap of approval from the people holding the leash. You studied every cell in my body, every instinct, every fear, every weakness. You built psychological profiles thick enough to fill libraries, convinced yourselves you understood exactly what I would become, and somehow every one of you overlooked the single variable that actually mattered.”

His eyes settled on Barbara again, the corners of his lips already spreading across his face. “Tell me, Barbara…did anybody ever explain what happened to Subject John’s imaginary friend…?”

Confusion briefly flickered across her face.

“No?” Homelander’s grin broadened. He shifted on his feet, angling her toward William with a satisfied smile. “Let me introduce you. William Butcher. In the flesh. …I imagine this comes as quite a shock. The imaginary friend all of you dismissed for years was real. That’s right, every conversation, every mention of him in every report your psychologists dismissed as a mere child’s escapist fantasy, every notebook filled with observations about John’s so-called imaginary best friend….” A quiet chuckle escaped him. “Funny how the only fantasy belongs to Vought. You had all convinced yourselves that a frightened little boy had invented somebody to survive the loneliness because none of you had the brains to fathom the impossible.”

Just the insinuation drained what little color remained from her face.

“But none of that is the funny part.” His smile broadened as he shared conspiratorially, like a hushed secret, “Did you know William’s V1 superpower is timetravel? The man destined to kill me had traveled back in time intending to assassinate The Homelander before Subject John ever became him. Imagine that.”

Barbara’s breathing caught.

"Lemme tell you, when William first walked into this laboratory, he came here to prevent the greatest monster the world would ever know from existing. Instead, he found a sad little boy locked inside a cage." Homelander's expression softened as his eyes drifted toward William, before returning to Barbara with a bright, maniacal grin that bordered on delirium. "Do you finally understand the punchline? You spent years transforming my childhood into such a godawful nightmare that my own executioner had looked at the child all of you had created and couldn't bring himself to finish the job. First he pitied me. Then he understood me. Somewhere between those two moments…,” he shook his head in amazement, a smitten, somewhat besotted smile spreading across his features, scarcely believing his own good fortune even now, "...he fell in love with me.”

The ridiculous expression Barbara made in response to his declaration, as though she’d swallowed a live insect, almost made Homelander laugh.

"I know. Wonderful, isn't it? The one man alive capable of killing me looked me in the eyes and decided I'd suffered enough." His gaze wandered back to William with unmistakable fondness. "You have no idea how romantic I think that is."

Only after lingering on William’s face for another heartbeat, did Homelander tear his gaze away to look back at Barbara. "But William falling in love with me isn't the greatest surprise. Yours is. You believed enough pain would make me obedient. You believed enough loneliness would leave me starving for whatever scraps of affection Vought decided to throw my way. You believed every experiment pushed me one step closer to becoming your perfect weapon, when every horror you inflicted accomplished the exact opposite. Every restraint, every biopsy, every sleepless night, every punishment, every humiliation carried William farther away from becoming my executioner and closer to becoming the man who loved me. Had my childhood been even slightly kinder, had you shown me the smallest measure of humanity, you would've doomed me, and William probably would've completed his mission without a second thought. Instead, every one of you helped create the only set of circumstances capable of changing the mind of the one man determined enough to travel across time and assassinate me. The only future where he spared my life was the future all of you engineered with your own hands.”

Homelander’s smile became almost radiant, pride shining from every feature. "You assembled the finest scientists, the brightest psychologists, and devoted decades to grooming the greatest superhero of the modern age. Yet none of you realized you were manufacturing the only version of John that William Butcher could never bring himself to kill, because before he ever had the chance to hate Homelander, he met the lonely little boy all of you had created. Before history ever remembered a monster, William learned to love John." His smile widened into open delight. “Me.”

His eyes drifted over to William again, lingering without embarrassment, warmth softening every line of his face despite Barbara dangling helplessly from his hand. "Do you appreciate how extraordinary our story is? The one person in this world capable of killing me crossed time itself to become my executioner, only to become my lover instead." Homelander laughed, almost giddy. Just gazing at this miraculous wonder of a man was capable of making Homelander’s heart feel soaked in a vat of honey. "You couldn't write a better love story if you tried."

By the time his attention finally returned to Barbara, every trace of that tenderness froze into icy contempt. "That's your legacy. Not The Homelander. Not Vought's crowning achievement. Not the strongest Supe on Earth. Your legacy is that every mistake you made, every cruelty you justified, every misery you inflicted steered William away from murder and toward mercy. You didn't create the perfect weapon. You accidentally created the only version of me my William could ever love, and in doing so you transformed the one man capable of ending my life into the man who'd rather spend his life beside me."

His grip loosened, just enough for Barbara to drag a ragged breath into her lungs, before tightening around her neck once more. “So yes, Barbara, a little bit of gratitude is in order. I will never forgive you for what you did to me, and every memory of this place still makes my skin crawl, but I will always appreciate the magnificent irony that your life’s work accidentally produced the greatest gift you all never intended to give me.” His smile remained cold. “For that unintended generosity, I’ll extend a mercy you never once showed me. I’ll spare your pathetic life.”

(A/N)

Mind you, this tiny snippet is still rough in its initial draft form which I do intend to return to with a red pen to edit sometime in the future, but that’s for much later when we reach that moment in the story. In my plot outline, I jot down my notes for each chapter in shorthand abbreviations because no one except me sees it. My writing process is literally copying a chapter’s notes of what has to happen and pasting into a blank Google doc, and then going down deleting the notes with each paragraph fleshed out much more legibly—until you see the final draft on AO3. The process is messy behind the scenes, lol, but hey, if it works, it works. But for now, have this as a treat to look forward to. ;)

One of my favorite things about writing a time-travel Fix-It AU? Giving Billy a front-row seat to moments he never got to see in canon. That means a proper redux of Homelander confronting his childhood tormentors—except this time, William Butcher is there witnessing every second of it. In honor of July 4th being Homelander’s birthday, have a special snippet from a future chapter (rough notes and all) in ‘Simple Causality’—a scene that won’t appear until much, much later in the story—as a little treat on behalf of our softest, wettest birthday boy. 🇺🇸🎂🦅 Cheers!

Homelander leaned closer until his lips hovered beside Barbara’s ear. “I’m not some mutt you can teach to play fetch and roll over. I’m a god, and you actually believed you could dictate what a god was allowed to think and feel.” A faint smile spread across his face. “Funny. Your little experiment backfired worse than anybody at Vought could ever have imagined.”

His gaze wandered across the laboratory where he had spent his childhood, lingering on the Bad Room before drifting toward the adjacent thermal chamber. “You and every one of those sadistic bastards devoted your lives to creating the perfect weapon. Every restraint. Every experiment. Every humiliation. Every single cruelty that was supposed to strip away another piece of John until nothing remained except Homelander: Vought’s obedient masterpiece, forever chasing another scrap of approval from the people holding the leash. You studied every cell in my body, every instinct, every fear, every weakness. You built psychological profiles thick enough to fill libraries, convinced yourselves you understood exactly what I would become, and somehow every one of you overlooked the single variable that actually mattered.”

His eyes settled on Barbara again, the corners of his lips already spreading across his face. “Tell me, Barbara…did anybody ever explain what happened to Subject John’s imaginary friend…?”

Confusion flickered across her face.

“No?” Homelander’s grin broadened. He shifted on his feet, angling her toward William with a satisfied smile. “Let me introduce you. William Butcher. In the flesh. …I imagine this comes as quite a shock. The imaginary friend all of you dismissed for years was real. That’s right, every conversation, every mention of him in every report your psychologists dismissed as a mere child’s fantasy, every notebook filled with observations about John’s so-called imaginary best friend….” A quiet chuckle escaped him. “Funny how the only fantasy belongs to Vought. You had all convinced yourselves that a frightened little boy had invented somebody to survive the loneliness because none of you had the brains to fathom the impossible.”

Just the insinuation drained what little color remained from her face.

“But none of that is the funny part.” His smile broadened as he shared conspiratorially, like a hushed secret, “Did you know William’s V1 superpower is timetravel? He traveled back in time intending to assassinate Homelander before Subject John ever became The Homelander. Imagine that.”

Barbara’s breathing caught.

“Lemme tell you, when William first walked into this laboratory, he came here to prevent the greatest monster the world would ever know from existing. Instead, he’d found a sad little boy locked inside a cage.” Homelander’s expression softened into affection as his eyes flickered toward William, before returning to Barbara with a brighter, almost maniac smile. “Do you finally understand the punchline? You all spent years transforming my childhood into such a godawful nightmare—that my own executioner looked at the child all of you had a hand in creating and couldn’t bring himself to finish the job. First he pitied me. Then he understood me. Somewhere between those two moments…,” a smitten, somewhat besotted smile spread across his features, “…he fell in love with me.”

The ridiculous expression Barbara made in response to his declaration, as though she’d swallowed a live insect, almost made Homelander laugh.

“I know. I was surprised too. But William falling in love with me isn’t the greatest surprise. Yours is. You believed enough pain would make me obedient. You believed enough loneliness would leave me starving for whatever scraps of affection Vought decided to throw my way. You believed every experiment pushed me one step closer to becoming your perfect weapon, when every horror you inflicted accomplished the exact opposite. Every restraint, every biopsy, every sleepless night, every punishment, every humiliation carried William one step farther away from killing me. Had my childhood been even slightly kinder, had you shown me the smallest measure of humanity, you would’ve doomed me, and William probably would’ve completed his mission without a second thought. Instead, every one of you played a part in creating the only set of circumstances capable of changing the mind of the one man determined enough to travel across time and assassinate me. The only future where he spared my life was the future all of you engineered with your own hands.”

Homelander’s smile became almost radiant, his pride impossible to conceal. “You assembled the finest scientists, the brightest psychologists, and devoted decades to conditioning the greatest superhero of the modern age. Yet none of you realized you were manufacturing the only version of John that William Butcher could never bring himself to kill, because before he ever had the chance to hate Homelander, he met the lonely little boy all of you had created. Before history ever remembered a monster, William learned to love John.” His smile widened. “Me.”

Homelander’s smile almost became worshipful as his gaze drifted toward William once more, pride warming every word despite the violence of his grip around Barbara’s throat. Just gazing at this miraculous wonder of a man was capable of making Homelander’s heart feel soaked in a vat of honey. When his eyes finally returned to Barbara, every trace of that warmth vanished beneath glacial contempt. “That’s your legacy. Not Homelander. Not Vought’s crowning achievement. Not the strongest Supe on Earth. Your legacy is that every mistake you made, every cruelty you justified, every misery you inflicted steered William away from murder and toward mercy. You didn’t create the perfect weapon. You accidentally created the only version of me the one man capable of killing me could ever love.”

His grip loosened, just enough for Barbara to drag a ragged breath into her lungs, before tightening around her neck once more. “So yes, Barbara, a little bit of gratitude is in order. I will never forgive you for what you did to me, and every memory of this place still makes my skin crawl, but I will always appreciate the magnificent irony that your life’s work accidentally produced the greatest gift you all never intended to give me.” His glacial smile remained unwavering. “For that unintended generosity, I’ll extend a mercy you never once showed me. I’ll spare your pathetic life.”

(A/N)

Mind you, this tiny snippet is still rough in its initial draft form which I do intend to return to with a red pen to edit sometime in the future, but that’s for much later when we reach that moment in the story. In my plot outline, I jot down my notes for each chapter in shorthand abbreviations because no one except me sees it. My writing process is literally copying a chapter’s notes of what has to happen and pasting into a blank Google doc, and then going down deleting the notes with each paragraph fleshed out much more legibly—until you see the final draft on AO3. The process is messy behind the scenes, lol, but hey, if it works, it works. But for now, have this as a treat to look forward to. ;)

guess this is gonna be a Butchlander centric blog for now.......

Sentinel and Guide

I had my husband draw me a poster for The Boys. ❤️

I love how whiney Homelander is because his victim mentality is so fucking strong. Like yes, you test lab baby that's been absolutely coddled as an adult, you definitely had it the worst. Woe forever be unto you.

I loved the episode in S4 where he traveled back to the lab to torture and kill every single person that had a hand in his shitty non-existent childhood. Because yes, it was terrible and he had a point. Not one of them stopped to think "Hey this is wrong." And, for what it's worth, Barbara had a point too. They. Were. Scared. Orders were orders and they were handling a volatile superhuman child.

Did Homelander get what he wanted? Yes. Did it do him some good in the end? Briefly. I don't think his victim mentality will allow him to get over one singular issue for too long after he's "solved it" per say. Because he loves to moan and whine about how he grew up tortured in a lab.

But what about the supes that came before him? The adults that had to suffer through the trauma they already carried, on top of now being a superhuman test subject? We've seen how painful watered down Compound V is, to both teens and adults, but imagine how unbearable V1 had to have been?

"I heard you pissed yourself." - Yeah I probably would have too. Assuming Ben wasn't the first person injected and therefore witnessed the horrors of V1 firsthand. And then immediately after being shoved into, likely, the same tests they performed on Homelander years later. Arguably, a little more refined I'm sure. Ben was forced to witness the V1 testing and understands why so few subjects survived. It. Was. Awful.

Look at what happened to Quinn? Look at how sorry he was for killing him. He didn't want to, didn't mean to. He regretted that action so much that he isolated and allowed his grief to consume him. Even if it was just a fraction of what a normal human with decent morals would feel.

Homelander could never. And he's proven that time and time again. He doesn't regret killing Stillwell because it was "bad." He regrets killing her because he lost a puppet, an equal manipulator but one that was on his side. When Stormfront died (allegedly), he wasn't upset because she was gone. He was upset that she did that to him on his birthday. A-Train? Again, it was "woe is me" and blaming him for not listening. Not behaving. Instead of looking at himself and seeing the problem.

Homelander is a whiney little shit who wasn't told no enough growing up. And now that he's been told no one too many times, he's throwing a temper tantrum. Homelander didn't have a childhood, so he never grew up. He doesn't understand maturity or responsibility. He's a manchild, and we all know it.

"You just can't compare what he's been through with anyone else. It always frustrates me to no end whenever someone goes "character X also experienced trauma but they turned out decent" thingy, as if what HL went through is the same level as what others have gone through. He is a product, brand, and weapon first, there was no room for the human. The environment he grew up in and continues to be in, will never let him grow. Then now, he's at the point where he will not acknowledge the internal problems he's facing, he just blames it all externally."

Him bitching and whining might be one of the healthiest ways he can express this.... grief he feels when looking back how he was raised. The biggest problem though is that Vought's programming/repeated actions whenever he messes up taught him to not care. I know some don't really see the boys: diabolical to be canon due to some inconsistencies, but we can refer to what happened in that to be in the same vein to what also happened in the show ver. Despite the lab crimes against humanity level of experimentation, we see there's goodness. Like genuine want to do good, but unfortunately Vought never prepared him for the real world. All experiences he got similar to it are controlled, a simulation.

Even the way he was "coddled" as an adult, was just a gilded cage. It wasn't pure love, it was a containment strategy. Vought was terrified of his power, so they pampered him to keep him dependent and manageable. But that manipulation has a shelf life, a tipping point. The moment he sees through it, like we saw with Madelyn, retaliation follows because he realizes his entire reality was a lie.

Vought's working environment put a nail in the coffin. Like imagine if HL never found out about Ryan, he may very well still be under Vought's manipulation. The saddest thing though is that this has been his whole life, it'll be really hard to change his ways, especially immediately. Barbara is indeed right, as awful as she is, that he'll never overcome the need for love no matter how many times he says he will. That's a "primal wound" that won't heal properly due to how this false self has been what he's been. The product, brand and weapon of Vought. Never John. Imo, I'm more surprised we still see his empathy, no matter how weird he shows it cause of his upbringing, in some ways. Unfortunately, he's in a total mental descent now.

--------maybe spoilers I'm not sure---------

I have seen at least a couple seasons of "the Boys", but I've read and seen clips of past that.

I've seen all of Gen V.

(I don't have Amazon prime)

Something said Ryan (biologically Rebecca and Homelander's) son is the 1st known naturally born super.

Homelander is in his mid 40s and unless I missed something he's not the oldest super.

Is it explained somewhere about supers not birthing other supers? Or are supers sterile? Or did I read something wrong?

All of these agonizing tests are there for the good of the world, John!