~Wtd Butch Bowers headcannons~
Huuuuuge fucking nerd, just the most absolute pathetic wimpy nerd you have ever seen. Remember the kid who Charlotte saved from those bullies outside Keene's Butchershop? That's Butch. He's literally the kid with glasses getting the shit kicked out of him. (ofc not actually, in fact it's most likely Wentworth but shhhh this is all headcannons anyways). You also know Bert the turtle? Yeah, that's also Butch. He's the kid in the costume.
Mostly considered a nerd because of his big stupid glasses, but he's also just genuinely got very nerdy interests. He collects war memorabelia, figurines, flags, books, trading cards, ect. In fact, that little room down in the barrens Ben found and refurbished into their clubhouse? Butch and his brother made that. He was very insistent they put it in the ground so it could be like a cool ass military bunker, and his brother agreed.
Butch lives with his father Clint and younger brother Dale after Butch's mother, who he somewhat keeps on a pedestal, passed away.
Dale is basically the Belch Huggins of the 1960's, just a total lunkheaded easily amused dummy. He looks a lot prettier than Butch though, he has blonde hair he got from their father and pouty lips he got from their mother- Butch seemed to get the worst of everything.
Butch had no friends except for Dale, and although Dale and him are extremely close and love each other, Butch often pushed him around and dragged him to do things he didn't want to do.
Dale, despite being a year younger than Butch, was a whole foot taller than him and that often made Butch very insecure and mad.
Butch only started being called Butch during senior year of highschool and got in shape/started wearing contacts so he could go fight Vietnam. Then he started to get noticed by people who nicknamed him Butch because he looked so intense and threatening. Before that he was only known as Oscar Bowers, or Oafish Oscar if you picked on him.
Clint was not a good father to Butch or Dale at all, but not in the way that Butch was a bad father to Henry. Clint was really just never around for them, usually going out to bars or staying late at his police job to avoid them both. This started by the time Clint's wife died and suddenly lost interest in being a family man. For this reason, Oscar has held a vendetta against his father for his entire life. He claims he and Dale are basically orphans, and that their mom was the only parent they had worth a shit, and that Clint is the sole reason Butch was bullied all those years. If Clint hadn't been absent and had taught him to be a real man, to be tough and imposing and strong, he wouldn't have had to teach himself or toughen up so much. The reason he's so hard on Henry is because he is compensating for his dad's lack of presence in his life- Clint failed to make Butch a real man, so now Henry is gonna learn it the hard way, no ifs and or butts. That boy is gonna be a tough killin' machine no matter what. He also hates Clint for losing his police job, cause even if Oscar is a racist he still isn't above blaming Clint for getting fired either. He used that as motive to become a cop, solely to make his dad feel inferior, and he also used that as the inspiration to name his son Henry, purely to remind Clint of the criminal who cost him his job. Butch's hatred for Clint really knows no bounds.
He was always pretty racist, even before Vietnam. He was really into world war two but not because he cared about jewish people (he actually believed they brought it all on them selves by not giving up their religion) but because it was such a fat W for american men. He also engaged in more, passive xenophobia and racism than he would exhibit in his later life- but when he got drafted to vietnam he really went off the deep end. Suddenly Butch hated everyone ten times more, but black people and asians typically got the worst of it from him. His sexism also increased, now that he'd come out of service and felt he was entitled to the women he'd "Saved" by serving the country.
Owned a pump action BB gun he'd obsessively polish and hold onto.
Signed up to be Bert the turtle because he felt that, since Bert was the mascot for warning kids about nukes and bombs, he was helping the military a little bit.
Probably undiagnosed autistic and passed it on to Henry.
Had an obsessive crush on Lilly Bainbridge for a long time. Lilly straight up never even noticed he existed for so long because before all the stuff in 1962 she was busy hanging out with Matty, and even after she tended to like more popular jock types. Butch's crush on her really came from her being a Patty Cake at one point, being really pretty, having a dead parent like he did, and her little turtle charm made him go "oh my god I'm Bert the turtle, it's meant to be!!".,
I really believe the theory Lilly is Henry's mom, so there's just something really deeply ironic to imagine that both of Henry's parents had actual honest to god turtle themes going on (Butch's suit and Lilly's charm bracelet) but they still would up being used by Pennywise to create the perfect puppet for it.
Butch's attraction for Lilly is really just an evil version of Ben Hanscom, in the way that he silently liked her for so long, got really buff, and suddenly she was into him.
He definitely liked being with Lilly due in part to how long it took to get her, it felt like he'd "won her" in a way.
Lilly also tried to coddle him when he got PTSD because she understood how it felt to be treated poorly cause of your mental illness and how hard it is, even when he hit her she was kind and patient about it. It was only until Butch started being publicly racist and hurting people she started to think he was beyond help.
He did actually like her though before he went to Vietnam, he really did. As much as Butch could actually enjoy the presence of a girl, he did enjoy being around Lilly until he got PTSD.
Dale grows up to just sell time shares to old people in Bangor, occasionally dropping in at least once a week to see how Butch and Henry are doing, especially once Lilly leaves him.
When Dale has Connor he brings him over for playdates with Henry all the time, and it's pretty special considering Connor is the only kid Henry seems to know how to be gentle with at all.
The fact a black woman once saved him from getting his ass kicked holds NO impact on him, if anything, it actually makes him hate black women more. He was so massively insecure about himself he found it really insulting a woman, or even worse, a black woman thought she needed to save him. It's also a bit of tragic irony that Charlotte tried to help the guy who would soon raise his son to bully her grand kid and have a feud with Will.
Specifically started to hate Will Hanlon when he saw him hanging around town with Lilly Bainbridge. First of all, Lilly was HIS girl and even Matty Clements was on some thin fucking ice, but ain't no black kid gonna come in and make a move on his babe. Of course Will never even liked Lilly romantically, he liked Ronnie and only Ronnie, but Butch was under the impression any black dude would pick a white woman over his own race, partly because he didn't think too fondly of black woman, and also partly because he thought all black dudes were secretly cunning and malicious a holes here to ruin the lives of hardworking white people by stealing their friends, jobs, and women. This feud stayed mostly in Butch's head tho until he was an adult, and Will actually never even noticed Butch hated him so much until he made it evident. Butch wasn't someone Will saw a lot at school or even noticed when he was there, and he was kind of busy with all of the racist kids who threatened to beat him up or did actual violence on him, he didn't really take time to notice Butch staring at him all angrily when Will had already been used to passive racism everywhere he went. The whole Will and Butch feud really was just a one sided thing Butch had thought up cause he's an incel with serious entitlement.
Will thought about telling Lilly to not go around with Butch anymore after his racism reared it's head, but his trauma from the black spot made him hesitant to go messing with the Bowers family again. On some level, you have to be very cautious about what you can pick a fight on. Besides, Will doubted Lilly had much of a choice in staying with Butch at this point- even if he did tell her she had to leave, Butch might do something really fucking crazy, something that could even come back around and hurt him and his family if still thought he liked her. On the rare occaision he bumped into her at the store though he'd always point out that Butch seemed to be getting worse and worse lately, and Lilly might consider tell him to not be so aggressive to her or any of their neighbors- especially if he's giving her black eyes and shit.
When Lilly left Butch was basically in a depressive slump, at first he was angry but then he was just kind of numb. Deep inside if him there was a slight little glimmer of regret and maybe even a little bit of accountability, but for the most part he deflected and just drank away the pain.
When Clint died he didn't go to the funeral, even when Dale tried to get him to. He sometimes would visit his grave to throw bottles at it. And in a bit of dramatic irony, he expressed to Henry his wish that he could have killed him himself.
