#they interact like 12 years old lovestruck kids high on the 2 boxes of oxys that they stole from mama's purse

[psalmsofpsychosis]

So if Bruce and Alfred's humanity is a disfigured shadow they'd like to have gone, what about the Joker??

Is his humanity a knife made of fish hooks with which he rips parts of people out, taking a little of their humanity with him? He uses it as a tool to hurt others and himself and acknowledges his humanity once in a while, while Bruce pretends to be unfeeling and cold, a monster in the dark that you should be afraid of.

Only the problem is that the Joker can see through Batman's facade and that the fish hook can't scratch a shadow or catch anything on stone. And even if he rips through Bruce's flesh, his shadow is a separate thing entirely, detached from his body, unchanging even if an arm goes missing.

Oh look, I wrote something again. What do you think? Is a fish hook an accurate metaphor or do you have something else in mind? Would love to hear your thoughts!!!

[in continuation of this ask]

❤️ so i'm lowkey in love with how you interpreted Joker's relationship with his own humanity and other people's, there's something so intricate and so right about the way you phrased it— maybe not the knife, but he absolutely works like a fish hook. I think that Joker isn't interested in anyone's humanity, his own or Batman's or anyone else's. To me though, he's in mad love with all things true and real and pure and sublime. He wants the untainted untouched heart of everything in a very idealistic sense, but not necessarily in a good sense. He doesn't want violence, he doesn't want evil, he doesn't want goodness; he wants the unbearable highest point of pure evil, he wants the most sublime expression of unflinching goodness. There's a reason why he works so-and-so in his dynamic with most villains, but comes alive when he's facing Batman. Batman as a persona is an ideal that does not bend to the reality surrounding Bruce, the "no killing" code doesn't adopt or respond to much anything that gets thrown Batman's way, it's almost pure good (except that it's not because Batman can only deny his humanity for so long and when it eventually bursts through the metaphorical door of his mind, both him and Joker hate it.)

So like, yeah, fish hook. I think Joker throws fish hooks into people's psyche and pulls out what he believes is their true, core nature, their essence. It's what he needs, he desperately wants to get to the very heart of existence, so he continuously claws people's core out of them, or what he thinks is their core. And he does it the most with Batman precisely because Batman provides a challenge. I dont think at any given time Batman truly knows what his core is, so he gets to define it. He defines his identity with his bare hands and that's both his biggest strength and his weakness. Strength because it gives him the power of choice, he's not necessarily what you'd call a good person, but he makes the conscious choice to do good and his choice defines him, but also it's a weakness because by choice he's leaving massive parts of himself out of the picture, and he never really... gets to exist as a human being, always present only in carefully curated bits and pieces. That leaves him vulnurable to attack because well, what you dont see and down own you cannot defend.

That also makes him the most fun handmade project for Joker to break, because as you said, Joker is /very/ good at seeing the holistic picture of Batman's identity, and Joker is objectively more oriented towards reality, the reality of their context and where they live. It's part of the reason his insanity is so compelling; it's intentional, not as in he's faking his insanity, but as in, he understands social structures and people's humanity so damn well and he flies off the handle in precise ways that respond to them that brings of of them exactly what he wants, he orients his insanity to different contexts and people very well. He's a paradigm breaker and a people breaker but you can only successfully break what you understand very well.

As for Joker's own humanity? i think he hates it and resents it and fears it because well, it's not sublime and true and pure, it's just human. Actually lot of Joker and Batman's dynamic is built around this sense of idealism and purity really, they both struggle so hard with just fucking being. Joker can't even be an average villain, he has to push it on every fucking front and be the most exceptional vile and grotesque face of evil, only then does he feel like himself.

Honestly if i had to make an allegory for Joker and Batman's relationship with each other's humanity, [tw mentions of suicide attempt] it'd be the story of two children, each one bringing the other a chair and a rope to dangle from the cieling, each taunting the other to hang themselves, not by the premise of dying, but by the premise that "you having your head near the cieling is the closest you'll be to g-d, and you'll be good and true", and they tell each other that the chair is their enemy, they dont need it.

#i'm sorry for the graphic metaphor #it's just that to me their dynamic has this almost childlike level of purity to it #it's the [grotesque] idealism but also the fact that they dont interact like fully grown adults with complex thought processes #and intricate emotional nuances to the way they navigate each other #they interact like 12 years old lovestruck kids high on the 2 boxes of oxys that they stole from mama's purse #i love them i want to study them under microscope #but i know i'll slurp them up right from the petri dish before i get behind the table #Batman #batman meta #dc joker #joker meta #batjokes #batjokes meta