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limetameta · 6 months

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Was anyone going to tell me about alternate dimension lobotimized Joker, or was I just supposed to find that well of opportunity out by watching the episode A better world in Justice League?? Like my dudes, this is amazing batjokes real estate here. *slams Joker like the hood of the batmobile* The potential alone. The angst. Superman lobotomizing Joker to put a stop to him finally as he has done to numerous others. Batman thought that he was ready for this. That it had to be done. The voice in his head says that this should be everything he's ever dreamt of. The Joker stopped. He's not dead, either.

Surely. Surely this is what he's always hoped for.

But it isn't.

And it's far too late to return to how things were. All of the rogues gallery are lobotomized. They're calmer, and they don't cause any trouble. One can even say that Arkham is a home to them now. It's certainly nicer without all of the screaming and the mad cackling.

At first, he comes to visit him. The few doctors there treat this as his curiosity, but Batman is sceptical that the treatment worked. Surely, the Joker’s mind is unlike any other. A part of him he doesn't dare call hope wants the Joker to be faking his mellowed behaviour, his eerie calmness. He doesn't laugh, but he does smile when he sees Batman. And there's such a tragic layer behind the looks he gives him. No. It's tragic because the Joker has been stripped of the ability to hide. What Batman sees when the Joker looks at him now is the most raw display of love the clown has ever donned. When you strip away the guns and the knives and the acid and the gas, the purple suits and the maddening laughter - this is what's left: his deepest, sincerest form of love out for Batman to see. To judge. And he can't even hide behind a joke.

Even lobotimized, even after Superman destroyed the Joker - he couldn't destroy this.

Batman sees the Joker move gently, shyly to cup his hand in his. Over the glove. Batman’s breath hitches. He braces for impact, for when the Joker will take a knife out from his sleeve or a razor edged Joker card to slice at him with.

But it doesn't come. How could it? Those two lobotomy marks on his forehead, from where Superman's laser vision did its work, they glare.

"Batman," his smile doesn't reach his eyes, it doesn't even stretch wide enough for teeth to show. But what teeth are left to show? Have they not defanged the Joker?

Quiet and obedient are two things that don't suit the Joker. And Batman feels bile rising in his mouth. He feels anger at himself for letting this happen. But if Superman could kill Lex Luthor, surely this compromise is something Batman can accept.

"Joker, how do you feel?"

He blinks. Trying to think. "Half a brain lighter," he says and shrugs.

Batman dares to hope. But the laughter doesn't come. The Joker doesn't even wink. He yawns, exhausted, or too medicated. They're pumping him with more drugs than is necessary still. Precautions.

Batman grasps hold of the Joker by his wrist. Tighter than he intends. No flash of panic or excitement or even anger flashes across the Joker’s face. Nothing that can let Batman know there's anyone under that hollow mask, that face.

He's killed the man under the acid bleached skin and left something neither here nor there. Is this what might happen to him if the man under the cowl is to die?

"What do you like to do?" Batman asks him, controlling the way his voice sounds. Everyone is listening. Everyone is watching.

"I don't know. No jokes, though. They say I can't tell jokes anymore. But, um, well," he looks sheepish in this light, and normally Batman would say it's a ploy. But now he knows it isn't. So the honesty in the Joker’s expressions is worse than anything he's ever seen. "I don't really remember if I ever liked to do that. Did I ever make you laugh?" It's with childlike wonder that he looks at him now, inching closer than is allowed, but Batman can't find it in himself to push him away or to raise his voice at him. To remove him from himself and send him off to therapy or to his cell. His room. Wherever.

He won't be able to look at Superman again without seeing this.

"Yes." The admission comes at a cost.

The Joker’s eyes crinkle with happiness. "That's good." He grasps hold of his gloves hand and squeezes it. Not to hurt him. Just to feel him. Batman will never be able to return to Arkham. He will never be able to see this man again.

But it's too late anyway. The man he wants to see was ripped through those two marks on his forehead.

"Thank you." The Joker says. He's clasping both hands over his and smiling up at him. This is not the Joker you know, this will never be the Joker you knew. Nor will it ever be the one you wanted to know, the one who willingly went through rehabilitation.

But. But. The voice in your head goes on, louder, quicker: this needed to be done. How many people would need to die at his hand for you to realise this? Be happy Superman took this difficult task from your hands. You didn't kill. You still haven't killed.

The Joker mumbles something.

"What?" Batman barks, his voice flooded with wretched pain he hopes comes across as anger.

It doesn't. Even lobotomized, the Joker can tell: "Hush now," he comforts, patting his hands and humming, "you don't have to explain anything to me. You don't owe me anything, o Justice Lord."

The bile in Batman’s mouth is worse than any acid the Joker might have thrown at him. There is not a hint of irony in the Joker’s voice.

He rips his hands away from the Joker and stands. He isn't shaking only because he is a master of control, and he knows everyone is watching. Everyone is always watching.

It's heartbreak, pure and simple. "You aren't coming back, are you?"

"What's there to come back to?" Batman asks, hollow in his heart, looking at a hollow man. A shell of someone he doesn't want to think about. Because if he does think about him, he'll wonder if this really needed to be done. And he can't have such thoughts. Not when everyone is watching.

The Joker nods his head. He doesn't have the capacity for anything else. "That's all right."

Where is the fanfare? The fireworks? The theatrics?

Batman cannot recognise the man in front of him. So he turns around, cape billowing behind him. He cannot look back. But unlike what was promised to Orpheus, even though Batman doesn't turn around, the Joker never returns by his side.

Diana stands next to him. She puts a hand to his shoulder to ask him something, but he slams it away and growls: "I don't need anything from you."

Her eyes harden to steel and he knows that he said too much.

So he amends it: "I need some time. To recuperate. This is... a lot to take in."

Her voice is gentle when she speaks to him: "Of course. I am here for you."

"Yes." Batman says. Anything longer and he might let something else slip in his voice that he can't allow.

It is easy to disappear in the Batcave. It is easy because the other Justice Lords are all very much happy to be in the spotlight.

Batman obsesses over the man in Arkham. He never comes back. But he knows, because it is his business to know, that he is a model patient. Even entrusted to help out run Arkham. He loves being around people. But too much excitement tires him out. To pass the time he paints or he spends time with Ivy in the garden. Harleen Quinzel sometimes visits them.

Any footage he can find of the cctv in Arkham depecting the Joker has him subdued. He has scoured so much footage without seeing him shake with laughter. At most he smiles and shrugs his shoulders.

Alfred doesn't say anything. But he makes him tea and he brings it to him more frequently, trying to help him in any way he can. It feels similar, Batman takes the tea and drinks it, to how the first cup of tea tasted like after he had come home that night.

The Justice Lords attempt to get him to leave the Batcave and help them, but Batman tells them he is busy dealing with something important.

He watches the Joker attempt to put puzzles together with Edward Nygma. It's a 12+ puzzle. They're struggling.

Harleen Quinzel brings them 5+ puzzles next time. She sits with the Joker and she tells him about her day, about her new job at a different clinic. About how she wised up. Then, mushing her head in hand: "It was either I wised up, or I became like you and Ivy. Not much of a choice."

The Joker has given up on the puzzle. He tells Harley about this butterfly he saw in the garden. He has nothing else that stood out to him. It was purple. He thinks he likes purple.

Harley scoffs. "Now that's funny."

The Joker shrugs. "Sorry."

"What for?"

He shrugs again. And he manages to look into the camera. And how many times has he looked into Arkham cameras and left messages just for Batman to decipher? Is this something he remembers. Is this something he wants to tell Batman?

"Sorry." He looks at Batman. But Batman thinks that this is the Joker telling him he has nothing to be sorry for.

Batman cuts all contact with Arkham. He does not look at cctv. He does not read any news or any reports.

Alfred still brings tea and he still doesn't say anything. What can he say?

Nothing. So Batman doesn't waste words. He instead pursues research that leads him to finding alternative realities.

Watching himself is not something Batman is interested in. It means nothing to him to see Bruce Wayne or Batman or some amalgam of different circumstances.

And he is just about to step away from the computer and put an end to this research - when he hears it.

It's loud and maniacal and freeing and mad.

It's angry and despicable and outrageous.

It's dangerous and intelligent.

It's him.

Batman stares at the Joker, clad in purple and green, holding a laughing gas bomb and aiming it at the Batman of his world, with a grin so wide it must hurt. "Batsy, just in time for the punchline!" He throws the bomb and laughs.

#batjokes #batman #the joker #justice league #dcau #bruce wayne #limeta #u can reblog #writing

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akajustmerry · 2 years

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putting aside tayloring swifters history of pettiness, white feminism and racism - i wanna say from the bottom of my heart that her lyrics and craft have never really evolved or grown from the level of "insecure teenager with some potential but still feels the need to overexplain their metaphors" and it's so.......sad??? like you can really tell this woman dropped out of high school and became famous and never matured beyond that point in any way. even her "best" music is full of this over-exposition that's so childish. ppl will write thinkpiece after thinkpiece about how she manages to stay popular with teens because she reinvents her image but the opposite is true. it's because you listen to this 30+-year-old woman's music and she's still writing the exact same way she did when she was a teenager and the coat of paint they put over it might change, but she's the same person, musically, now at 30+ as she was at 16 and I don't necessarily mean that as a compliment. and its fine I guess if you're into an artist whose whole MO is validating the idea that who you were as a teenager was the most valid and raw version of you and you're really the "main character" of your life, but personally, after 15 years of listening to swift sing on and on about secret crushes and meetings and enemies, it's tired. we get it taylor, you're a high school dropout who never grew past that. like i don't think it's a coincidence that hardcore ts fans are people who think being able to spot repetition is peak literary analysis. i don't think it's a coincidence that her fans are chronically immature people online. i don't think its a coincidence that so much of her behaviour feels like a high school popular girl and i don't think it's a coincidence that so much of her fanbase are still teenagers! because she presents herself, musically, as someone who refuses to grow up.

#this is not a full thought but idk do you guys get what I mean?#like i say this also as someone who likes the occasional ts song but yeah #u can reblog #/

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