Well, I've had this idea rolling around in my head for a little while now, and I had just about all day to do whatever I wanted, so I wrote out this little oneshot. Getting inside the Joker's head is challenging, but very fun. I'll admit, I didn't go that far into it here, but don't worry - this will certainly not be my last attempt at doing so. And, in the meantime, I'm quite pleased with how this turned out, even though it's quite a bit different than what I imagined it would be before I wrote it. So, I hope you all enjoy, and please review if you do!

The Clown Prince of Crime

By GodzillaGuy

The Joker wasn't much of what you might call a... people-person.

Oh, sure, they were an enjoyable enough part of his life. They lived their meager little lives predictably, like they were in a dull TV program that rewound itself when it was done, repeating itself endlessly. They treated it like some kind of disaster whenever he came along and broke that monotony for them. They would struggle feebly against him each and every time, and all those times he would simply laugh with sadistic glee at their pathetic efforts - except for when they cowered, in which case he would also laugh just as hard. But it was different than actually liking them - or connecting with them at all, for that matter, though doing that was hardly on the top of his list of priorities. Usually he only appreciated them the way a predator might appreciate the existence of its prey. That was exactly what others were: his food, mere items used to help make his own existence possible and drive it forward.

But every so often, his fellow human beings pleasantly surprised him.

Take the Batman, for instance. Now he was a one-of-a-kind specimen. Most human beings might choose a life of shallow tedium, but Batman... he was more like the Joker than he would ever admit. He knew how to live. Anyone else would have labelled someone who took to dressing up like a bat and prowling the streets of Gotham every night to fulfill his own purposes as insane, but the Joker wanted nothing more than to shake the man's hand at the mere thought of it. The Batman was another child of chaos and the random nature of life - that was why people were so shocked at the mere concept. As such, Batman was the one person on the planet the Joker could truly call an equal. And he was incredibly glad to have such an individual as an enemy, because he was quite possibly the only thing that kept the Joker's life from slipping into the same monotony as everyone else; even giant explosions and mass murder wouldn't be able prevent that. Anyone else in the Joker's place might have made it their number one priority to exterminate such a formidable adversary. But he knew better; his little Dark Knight was something to be prized and, above all, preserved, by whatever means necessary, unless he were to figure out some way to dispose of him in a way that was even more fun than the Bat's efforts against him themselves. Until then, the Joker was perfectly happy to forever play with his toy without breaking it.

Okay, so there was one person the Joker was able to respect, if such a word could be used in conjunction with him. But what about the rest of the masses out there? Surely they were unable to rise above their current positions and do something exceptional or worthwhile, right?

He had to admit, it was not the easiest of tasks, teaching them. He could show them again and again how useless it was to resist the power of chaos, yet so often they would fail to get it through their heads. He never stopped trying, of course, if for no other reason than it entertained him so, yet sometimes he could not help but fall into despair at the thought that they might never realize the truth (though beating Harley usually helped raise his spirits a little). That is, until... that day. That day that had been one of the defining ones in his life, nearly on par with the day he had gotten his scars or the day he had his first showdown with the Batman.

The Joker had been taking a short break from his usual brand of recreational activities - that is to say, he'd been "locked up" in Arkham again, though obviously he could escape whenever he felt like it. He'd been in the rec room, sitting on the couch and watching the news, since there was nothing else to do; they'd removed the chess set in the corner after he'd used one of the pieces in a... magic trick he was showing one of the orderlies. The coverage was boring him nearly to death, and the inability to change the channel was causing him to halfway-regret getting the remote taken away from the rec room as well (due to yet another magic trick, this time with one of the remote's batteries), when a story about his most recent caper came up. Great stuff - seeing the family members of the people he had killed weep over the loved ones' memories always made him smile to himself - but what really made the report was the last part. That's when they spoke their title for him for the very first time.

The Clown Prince of Crime.

Upon hearing that, he had burst into wild, uncontrollable laughter, so powerful that he fell off the couch and rolled around on the floor for several seconds before the orderlies, nervous at this act of apparent mental instability, surrounded him and dragged him back to his cell. And all the while he kept laughing and laughing, even after they threw him into his cell and locked the door with all four locks. He knew then and there that his efforts had not been wasted on the masses.

It was human nature to give titles to things they valued; it was a symbol of honor. If it wasn't, then everyone would possess one. Instead, only those who had done something extravagant and worthy of attention within their lifetimes were given them. Ask someone on the streets if they've ever heard of Alexander III of Macedon, and they'll have no idea what you're talking about. But use the name Alexander the Great instead, and they'll recognize the name immediately. The same held true for countless other people throughout history; Batman himself, as Gotham's alleged "hero," had his own slew of titles.

And now they had done the same for him. They had called him the Joker because he had chosen that name himself and told them to use it (or at least used his joker calling cards to push them in that direction). But that wasn't really a title, since, not knowing his name, they had nothing else they could call him. And they'd also used other words to describe him - criminal, madman, terrorist. But those didn't count either, because there were thousands upon thousands of people to whom those words could be assigned. There was nothing unique or defining about them. But now he had a title, a true title. And it had been their idea to do it, not his. They might not have realized it consciously, but in giving him his own title, they had set him above everyone else, made him something greater than merely human.

There were other titles given to him as well since then. The Harlequin of Hate. The Ace of Knaves. All great names, mostly because, just as before, it had been the masses that had awarded them to him. But the Clown Prince of Crime was and forever would be his favorite, for several reasons, all of which were contained in the title itself.

And not the smallest of which was that the name marked him as royalty.

The title's very existence lifted him on top of everyone else's shoulders, of course, but, just like Alexander the Great, the title itself underlined his grandeur. What's more, they had declared him a prince rather than a king. Less intelligent people might have found that belittling, but the Joker understood it perfectly; by saying that, they were acknowledging that he would always be there to terrorize Gotham in endlessly more creative and destructive ways than before, just as a prince would someday move up to become a king.

Even better than calling him Prince, if possible, was clearly establishing that he was a Prince of Crime. For one, the word "crime" could apply to any number of things, whether it be stealing a pack of gum from a pharmacy or pumping the inside of a building full of nerve gas; that meant that his exploits knew no limits, and they knew it. For another, the word had a negative connotation to most people; this held even truer for Gothamites, considering what a scumhole their city was. And yet they had used it in a title that not only raised him up by its very nature, but spared one precious syllable just to assert his greatness even further.

The people were not simply accepting his role as the embodiment of chaos that he was; they were embracing it.

He knew he wasn't a villain or a monster or a psychopath, no matter what some might say. He was just there to show the world how things were supposed to work, and how they did work, no matter how much people tried to deny it. If anyone was Gotham's great savior, it was him, not the Batman. No matter how obvious it was that Batman was just as chaotic in nature as the Joker was, no matter how fun it was to watch him deny that truth, no matter how fun it was to tangle with him over and over again, to call him a hero made the Joker want to spit. Batman couldn't accept what he truly was, just as the rest of this miserable city couldn't. At least, that was what he had thought before they had bestowed that wonderful name upon him.

Maybe there was hope for the people of Gotham after all.

And there was hope, the Joker knew it. He would never stop his quest to take Gotham City, not now. Not now that it had finally begun to embrace him as its true hero, even while it knew that he was the predator and they were his prey. Because that was who he was, now and forever.

The Clown Prince of Crime.