All-Purpose Superhero Fanfiction Thread

It's like reciting lines for a play.

By now, that's what it is. The others, somehow, can't see it, because there's something that blinds them, something that acts as a barrier of sorts keeping them from the truth. Whether that is self-imposed or not doesn't matter. Maybe it's the very same thing keeping them sane. Perhaps they would become just as insane as him, if they were just as enlightened.

It's like a game with lines they have all learned to heart by now, even if they don't realize it. Possibly, deep inside, without ever actually realizing it, the Bat, who is the most intelligent person he's ever met after all, knows it too. Maybe he's taken it badly, and that's why his moods are so bad. Maybe he knows, subconsciously or not, how he really isn't saving anyone; they, like everyone else, are just dancing through a dark dream, and the instant the dreamers stop dreaming them, it all will be over, as if they never had existed. The Joker can appreciate the delightful fun in that, and how it actually enhances living and dying, over and over. No one else surely could. Not even Harley. She only would cry, even if sometimes, she comes so close to the truth.

That's why he won't die. He's never been alive in the first place. None of them are. They're just ghosts, shadows projected on the wall, a staged shadowplay that just won't end; it'll keep repeating itself, Joker suspects, as long as mankind exists. That's delightful and enjoyable as well.

That's why they won't kill him, no matter how much they hate him, and even if they do, it won't stick. It's an exercise in futility. It's a shadow trying to kill another shadow, but the light bulb hangs too far above, far from either side's reach. Shadows can't turn their own lights off; they only can and should ever go after the motions of their play.

Joker isn't sure if they're in a comic or a movie or a television show or a book or all at once, and frankly, the exact choice of media doesn't matter to him. But he knows the rest, the really important part, in the bottom of his black and otherwise empty heart. He has no identity, no sense of self, unlike everyone else; so his lacking soul is open enough to the single universal Truth, which slides easily into him.

He jumps off the ledge to make good his escape, spreading his arms and laughing, and the play follows its course, as the Bat throws the cable around his legs and once again saves him from decorating the sidewalk. Tonight's function won't end with his death. Hanging upside down, he keeps laughing, enjoying the feeling of the cold breeze on his face. The breeze, of course, is as scripted as everything else.

He has no internal script to follow, he's only a force of nature, as much as that breeze; simply one that happens to be self-aware. That's why he doesn't think of regrets or loved ones as he hangs. There's no shame or wonder about any other path his life might have taken. That was never an option. He couldn't ever be anything but The Joker. Otherwise, he wouldn't be himself, and without being what he is, he couldn't even exist in the first place. That makes just perfect sense! Ah ha ha ha ha!

It's past midnight, and he's pummeled and bloody after hours of struggling and killing and escaping, but he isn't tired or sleepy. An actor, no, not even that, a role, can't be tired, can't show sleepiness, unless the script says so. And he's beyond that. He isn't supposed to be human. He's a plot device, a mechanism in perpetual motion, lacking even the pretenses the Bat surely hides under that cowl.

In a way, he supposes, that might be considered as sad. Tragical, even. But, as he's just told you, he can't really dwell into what could have been. Mainly because it never could have been. Otherwise, it wouldn't be.

They lowered him like a shaking, guffawing marionette joined to a single string.