#corruption/discrimination/and etc. but i see them as who they are! some kids who just wanna make the world an easier place to live in :-(

[rueclfer]

what made you stan the lov?

ask me again when its 2am and post bong rip

[dajokahhh]

Alright, time for some pretentious sociological-esque rambling. This is gonna be long as hell (its 1822 words to be specific) and I don’t begrudge anyone for not having the patience to read my over-thought perspectives on a murder clown. CWs for: child abuse, 

I think a lot of things have to go wrong in someone’s life for them to decide to become a clown themed supervillain. A lot of people in Gotham have issues but they don’t become the Joker. I think that as a writer it’s an interesting topic to explore, and this is especially true for roleplaying where a character might be in different scenarios or universes. This isn’t some peer reviewed or researched essay, it’s more my own personal beliefs and perspectives as they affect my writing. I think villains, generally, reflect societal understandings or fears about the world around us. This is obviously going to mean villains shift a lot over time and the perspective of the writer. In my case, I’m a queer, fat, mentally ill (cluster B personality disorder specifically) woman-thing who holds some pretty socialist ideas and political perspectives. My educational background is in history and legal studies. This definitely impacts how I write this character, how I see crime and violence, and how my particular villains reflect my understandings of the society I live in. I want to get this stuff out of the way now so that my particular take on what a potential origin story of a version of the Joker could be makes more sense.

Additionally, these backstory factors I want to discuss aren’t meant to excuse someone’s behaviour, especially not the fucking Joker’s of all people. It’s merely meant to explain how a person (because as far as we know that’s all he is) could get to that point in a way that doesn’t blame only one factor or chalk it up to “this is just an evil person.” I don’t find that particularly compelling as a writer or an audience member, so I write villains differently. I also don’t find it to be particularly true in real life either. If you like that style of writing or see the Joker or other fictional villains in this way, that’s fine. I’m not here to convince anyone they’re wrong, especially not when it comes to people’s perspectives on the nature of evil or anything that lofty. Nobody has to agree with me, or even like my headcanons; they’re just here to express the very specific position I’m writing from. 

The first thing I wanna do is set up some terms. These aren’t academic or anything, but I want to use specific and consistent phrasing for this post. When it comes to the factors that screw up someone’s life significantly (and in some instances push people towards crime), I’ll split them into micro and macro factors. Micro factors are interpersonal and personal issues, so things like personality traits, personal beliefs, mental health, family history, where and how someone is raised, and individual relationships with the people around them. Macro factors are sociological and deal with systems of oppression, cultural or social trends/norms, political and legal restrictions and/or discrimination, etc. These two groups of factors interact, sometimes in a fashion that is causative and sometimes not, but they aren’t entirely separate and the line between what is a micro vs macro issue isn’t always fixed or clear.

We’ll start in and work out. For this character, the micro factors are what determine the specifics of his actions, demeanor, and aesthetic. I think the main reason he’s the Joker and not just some guy with a whole lot of issues is his world view combined with his personality. He has a very pessimistic worldview, one that is steeped in a very toxic form of individualism, cynicism, and misanthropy. His life experience tells him the world is a cold place where everyone is on their own. To him the world is not a moral place. He doesn’t think people in general have much value. He learned at a young age that his life had no value to others, and he has internalized that view and extrapolated it to the world at large; if his life didn’t matter and doesn’t matter, why would anyone else’s? This worldview, in the case of my specific Joker, comes from a childhood rife with abandonment, abuse, and marginalization. While I will say he is definitively queer (in terms fo gender expression and non conformity, and sexuality), I’m not terribly interested in giving specific diagnoses of any mental health issues. Those will be discussed more broadly and in terms of specific symptoms with relation to how they affect the Joker’s internal experience, and externalized behaviours.

His childhood was, to say the least, pretty fucked up. The details I do have for him are that he was surrendered at birth because his parents, for some reason, did not want to care for him or could not care for him; which it was, he isn’t sure. He grew up effectively orphaned, and ended up in the foster care system. He wasn’t very “adoptable”; he had behavioural issues, mostly violent behaviours towards authority figures and other children. He never exactly grew out of these either, and the older he got the harder it was to actually be adopted. His legal name was Baby Boy Doe for a number of years, but the name he would identify the most with is Jack. Eventually he took on the surname of one of his more stable foster families, becoming Jack Napier as far as the government was concerned. By the time he had that stability in his mid to late teens, however, most of the damage had already been done. In his younger years he was passed between foster families and government agencies, always a ward of the government, something that would follow him to his time in Arkham and Gotham’s city jails. Some of his foster families were decent, others were just okay, but some were physically and psychologically abusive. This abuse is part of what defines his worldview and causes him to see the world as inherently hostile and unjust. It also became one of the things that taught him that violence is how you solve problems, particularly when emotions run high. 

This was definitely a problem at school too; moving around a lot meant going to a lot of different schools. Always being the new student made him a target, and being poor, exhibiting increasingly apparent signs of some sort of mental illness or disorder, and being typically suspected as queer (even moreso as he got into high school) typically did more harm than good for him. He never got to stay anywhere long enough to form deep relationships, and even in the places where he did have more time to do that he often ended up isolated from his peers. He was often bullied, sometimes just verbally but often physically which got worse as he got older and was more easily read as queer. This is part of why he’s so good at combat and used to taking hits; he’s been doing it since he was a kid, and got a hell of a lot of practice at school. He would tend to group up with other kids like him, other outcasts or social rejects, which in some ways meant being around some pretty negative influences in terms of peers. A lot of his acquaintances were fine, but some were more... rebellious and ended up introducing Jack to things like drinking, smoking cigarettes, using recreational drugs, and most important to his backstory, to petty crimes like theft and vandalism, sometimes even physical fights. This is another micro factor in that maybe if he had different friends, or a different school experience individually, he might have avoided getting involved in criminal activities annd may have been able to avoid taking up the mantle of The Joker.

Then there’s how his adult life has reinforced these experiences and beliefs. Being institutionalized, dealing with police and jails, and losing what little support he had as a minor and foster child just reinforced his worldview and told him that being The Joker was the right thing to do, that he was correct in his actions and perspectives. Becoming The Joker was his birthday present to himself at age 18, how he ushered himself into adulthood, and I plan to make a post about that on its own. But the fact that he decided to determine this part of his identity so young means that this has defined how he sees himself as an adult. It’s one of the last micro factors (when in life he adopted this identity) that have gotten him so entrenched in his typical behaviours and self image.

As for macro factors, a lot of them have to do specifically with the failing of Gotham’s institutions. Someone like Bruce Wayne, for example, was also orphaned and also deals with trauma; the difference for the Joker is that he had no safety net to catch him when he fell (or rather, was dropped). Someone like Wayne could fall into the cushioning of wealth and the care of someone like Alfred, whereas the Joker (metaphorically) hit the pavement hard and alone. Someone like the Joker should never have become the Joker in the first place because the systems in place in Gotham should have seen every red flag and done something to intervene; this just didn’t happen for him, and not out of coincidence but because Gotham seems like a pretty corrupt place with a lot of systemic issues. Critically underfunded social services (healthcare, welfare, children & family services) that result in a lack of resources for the people who need them and critically underfunded schools that can’t offer extra curricular activities or solid educations that allow kids to stay occupied and develop life skills are probably the most directly influential macro factors that shaped Jack into someone who could resent people and the society around him so much that he’d lose all regard for it to the point of exacting violence against others. There’s also the reality of living in a violent culture, and in violent neighbourhoods exacerbated by poverty, poor policing or overpolicing, and being raised as a boy and then a young man with certain gendered expectations about violence but especially ideas/narratives that minimalize or excuse male violence (especially when it comes to bullying or violent peer-to-peer behaviour under the guise of ‘boys will be boys’). 

Beyond that, there’s the same basic prejudices and societal forces that affect so many people: classism, homphobia/queerphobia, (toxic) masculinity/masculine expectations, and ableism (specifically in regards to people who are mentally ill or otherwise neurodivergent) stand out as the primary factors. I’m touching on these broadly because if I were to talk about them all, they would probably need their own posts just to illustrate how they affect this character. But they definitely exist in Gotham if it’s anything like the real world, and I think it’s fair to extrapolate that these kinds of these exist in Gotham and would impact someone like The Joker with the background I’ve given him.

I have no idea how to end this so if you got this far, thank you for reading!

[a-memoir-of-me-blog]

more system things lol. fuck. matrix is real

my first true love: boys will be boys and good thing I'm not in that convo cause I know I'm ok with no abortions and cause I'm so against that or funding for that

-Me: but like at least have condoms and birth control easy access. Because then the kids being born to underage parents and/or parents who cannot afford good care for them, they'll grow up in harsh environments because the parents simply cannot get out of the system. All their hard work goes straight to just caring for what they have now. And if they're in school, it's even harder. If they're at work. It's even harder. This has a huge toll on a child's behavior. And that's why inner city schools need to be better. They need to rlly be there and feel like a community for the kid and prepare them for their success because that's what they're lacking at home. And very important for counseling for them. Teaching them about interpersonal and personal skills and negotiating for not just their gain, but their counterpart. We should donate to these kids who can't afford much because of the situation their parents are in. Or else there's a rlly high risk for them to act out in criminal ways. Like selling sex, selling drugs, robberies, gang activity all just to provide for themselves and their family. And they're just going to be jailed. And who suffers? Tax payers. Their families. That's why we need to PREVENT this. But private funded prisons will want to keep it because they want to profit off of the people who simply are not aware. And again. School. Community. Etc. and that creates less STD’s and unwanted pregnancies etc. and that would help hone down those issues. The services wouldn't be used as much because of the programs installed to help prevent that. And yes...all those services, are tax payers! And yes! We are giving them the profits! So instead! Let's do stuff to PREVENT this!

-Him: condoms and birth control and education should be enforced and made easy access because then it prevents unwanted pregnancies and spread of diseases. And most of the time they do grow up in tough situations but education (resources) only do so much and guide, but it's up to the individual to take it and own it and their own responsibilities when it comes to taking the smart way and benefit from that or disregard all of that and go the “alternative” way that media flaunts. Both males and females gotta start being aware of themselves and how they affect things around them and also to stop fucking everything and be smarter about their shit.

-Me: so we should help the inner city/low income kids have better ways to resolve issues. create more businesses within those area for them to get money in a civil way and at least help stay afloat with their family and not have to resort in uncivil ways to get money, in means of getting things to survive. this can also help keep gang activity down too. help keep pimping and prostitution down (STD’s and pregnancy down). drug dealers down. drug use down. honestly it all starts from 1) birth 2) growing up with proper education and good behaviors enforced and community connection

like they need to realize they're in a bad situation and we're born into this but it's not their fault. BUT it's THEY. it is YOU who can provide something better for yourself and your future and your community and the uprising generations. they should realize and be empowered that they can get out of the position they were born into.

that's also where discrimination comes in (being stuck in one area and letting power go to one), and learn to make ppl like them instead of reacting bad when bad happens to them. they need to let ppl see that all they want is a better life for themselves and those around them and not let their hopes and dreams go down because they're the minority and/or the targeted ones and the low income ones. the low educated ones. etc. they need to not act out when they're not being heard and/or given chances. the first chance is the first and last. so always try to make it good. if we installed a rlly strong emphasis on how important education is, self control and proper behavior to not hurt another and not one another, and come together as a community to be taken seriously and be seen as ppl who are rlly just trying to get things to be better for themselves and the community and the future. doing illegal shit will just make a lot of people want to them against them because they doesn't help them nor anyone else around them. but they also don't wanna fix it because they wanna lock those ppl up. and that's private prisons. and obv then the remainder need to go to public prisons and that's so much tax money, which could've went to education to prevent that stuff from happening.

-him: nine of that will stop tho. the system has made it this way and to try to stabilize low income communities with businesses and store fronts 1) no one wants to open a store in a high risk area 2) no one wants to fund a company in that location that's bound to be vandalized

-me: that's where social media and pop culture and selfishness comes into play. priorities are fucked up. they all wanna seem cool and above one another. like yo. you're in section 8. but u wanna stack on j’s? that won't mean shit when you're older? no one will care when you're older about what you had. you're gonna waste on drugs and kill your body slowly? you wanna “flex” and feel better than each other? tryna be like fake ass rappers who give off a fake make believe reality? and you're brainwashed into it? like….stop being brainwashed into thinking that's cool

And yeah, but that's where I think education needs to reform. I am all for education bruh. All for communities coming together to realize their internal issues and going to the root. All for changing their priorities. All for coming together for a better come up for all these shit areas. But yo. Education!!!!!! Like really man. Education. Being aware of the system so it doesn't chew them up and shit them out even worse But. I think if we open businesses there and let them realize. This is for the betterment of the WHOLE community. This isn't just for a profit. This is to offer u more jobs. Offer u a responsibility and a sense of importance. Because let's be honest. All these ppl just want to feel like they're doing something to get attention. And why would they wanna vandalize their own shit that's gonna help them? U know? Like. I think they should learn some ways to build more businesses. Businesses not just for themselves. But for their whole community and for their brothers and sisters all struggling. Like. They also need to stop being selfish and killing other ppl out of like idk. Jealousy? Wanting more money? But they're the ones making it hard for everyone in their community struggle. Ppl who are drug dealers or gang bangers always end up staying in their shit beginnings because as a WHOLE, they're making it harder for themselves. I guess u can say those ppl are the bad 1% of the low incomers lol. They create holes. Make other holes even bigger And how can this be avoided??? Education!!!!!!! Like. It sucks to say. But rn, there's like separate economies (high, middle, low). And they're all equally corrupt and that's why they all can't work well together rn and we're all like burdens to one another lol. But u know what helps ALL of them? Education and better Also. We should have more programs for kids. Let them socialize with kids their age. Have people to look up to as a good role model. Help them with any personal issues. Therefore they won't act out because they know there's help for them. Also it can be good because we can let their parents work while we watch their kids and help them with hw, do arts and crafts, socialize with friends, maybe play instruments, just dance. Be themselves. Let loose. :) "Hendren, along with Harvard economists Katz and Raj Chetty, now at Stanford University, looked at the lasting effects of moving children to better neighborhoods as part of Moving to Opportunity, a short-lived federal housing program from the '90s. Their analysis, published in May, found that the longer children are exposed to better environments, the better they do economically in the future. Whichever city or state children grow up in also radically affects whether they'll move out of poverty, he said"* And what did I say? Trying to improve inner city / low income neighborhoods? Like. They can improve it by themselves if they wanted to. If they're wise enough and more woke. "It's definitely been a strategy" to justify starving government of resources, which in turn weakens it and makes it less attractive as a tool to accomplish big things, said Skocpol. "In an everybody-for-themselves situation, it is the better-educated and the wealthy who can protect themselves."* And that's why we can't rely on the government. We must make the changes ourselves. We must educate ourselves. Educate our communities. Help the children. "I think it is naïve of most individuals to think that for everything there is something that government can legislate and regulate and impose that makes life better for everybody," she said. "That's just not the case."* While it's clear that investing in children and their education pays lifelong dividends for them, those gains take 20 years to be realized, said Katz. That's why it's critical that their parents get help and live in less vulnerable situations.* Of course industry needs to run its businesses productively and profitably, but it can do so without harming "the commons," Rivkin said. "Business has been very effective at pursuing its narrow self-interest in looking for special tax breaks. I think that kind of behavior just needs to stop." Drawing on an idea from Harvard Business School finance Professor Mihir Desai, Rivkin suggests that businesses treat their tax responsibilities as a compliance function rather than as a profit center. That money could then go back into investment in "the commons," where "lots of common ground" exists among business, labor, policymakers, educators and others.* "The businesses should be working with the local community college to train the workers whom they would love to hire; the university should be getting together with policymakers to figure out how to get innovations out of the research lab into startups faster; business should work with educators to reinvent the school system," said Rivkin.* Putnam suggests more widespread mentoring of low-income children who lack the social safety net that upper- and middle-class children enjoy, a topic he explored in "Our Kids."* Adam Smith, perhaps the first true economist, gave some answers in “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.” That treatise is sometimes thought of as a capitalist bible. It is at least partly about the achieving of greatness through the pursuit of wealth in free markets. But Smith didn’t believe that money alone assured national stature. He also wrote disapprovingly of the single-minded impulse to secure wealth, saying it was “the most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.” Instead, he emphasized that decent people should seek real achievement — “not only praise, but praiseworthiness.”** Strikingly, national greatness was a central issue in a previous presidential election campaign: Lyndon B. Johnson, in 1964, called for the creation of a Great Society, not merely a rich society or a powerful society. Instead, he spoke of achieving equal opportunity and fulfillment. “The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents,” he said. “It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness.”** All of which is to say that government intervention to enhance greatness will not be a simple matter. There is a risk that well-meaning change may make matters worse. Protectionist policies and penalties for exporters of jobs may not increase long-term opportunities for Americans who have been left behind. Large-scale reduction of environmental or social regulations or in health care benefits, or in America’s involvement in the wider world may increase our consumption, yet leave all of us with a sense of deeper loss. Greatness reflects not only prosperity, but it is also linked with an atmosphere, a social environment that makes life meaningful. In President Johnson’s words, greatness requires meeting not just “the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.”** The solution to this puzzle is to realize that economic inequality is not just one thing. It consists of some things that are very bad, like kids with no chance of reaching their potential, and others that are good, like Larry Page and Sergey Brin starting the company you use to find things online.*** And while some of the growth in economic inequality we've seen since then has been due to bad behavior of various kinds, there has simultaneously been a huge increase in individuals' ability to create wealth*** (refer back to my English essay about the bad 1% of the 1%. The stealers. The manipulators. Compared to the other .99% of the 1% who actually create stuff, and therefore create wealth in return for their creation) There are lots of things wrong with the US that have economic inequality as a symptom. We should fix those things. In the process we may decrease economic inequality. But we can't start from the symptom and hope to fix the underlying causes. [7]*** Closely related to poverty is lack of social mobility. I've seen this myself: you don't have to grow up rich or even upper middle class to get rich as a startup founder, but few successful founders grew up desperately poor. But again, the problem here is not simply economic inequality. There is an enormous difference in wealth between the household Larry Page grew up in and that of a successful startup founder, but that didn't prevent him from joining their ranks. It's not economic inequality per se that's blocking social mobility, but some specific combination of things that go wrong when kids grow up sufficiently poor.*** One of the most important principles in Silicon Valley is that "you make what you measure." It means that if you pick some number to focus on, it will tend to improve, but that you have to choose the right number, because only the one you choose will improve; another that seems conceptually adjacent might not. For example, if you're a university president and you decide to focus on graduation rates, then you'll improve graduation rates. But only graduation rates, not how much students learn. Students could learn less, if to improve graduation rates you made classes easier. Economic inequality is sufficiently far from identical with the various problems that have it as a symptom that we'll probably only hit whichever of the two we aim at. If we aim at economic inequality, we won't fix these problems. So I say let's aim at the problems.*** If we want to fix the world behind the statistics, we have to understand it, and focus our efforts where they'll do the most good.*** Rather, the focus should be on disrupting the cycle of poverty in which social decay in one generation inhibits the development of the next, individuals ill-prepared for life and work face limited opportunity, and their ensuing struggles cause further social decay.**** Better-educated parents place far more emphasis on encouragement and on the value of self-reliance, while less educated ones more frequently deliver discouragement and emphasize obedience.**** Children in the lower class face stresses and traumas that impair learning and the development of concentration, self-discipline, and problem-solving.**** Putnam explains that children in the lower class face stresses and traumas foreign to the upper class. They are up to five times more likely to face abuse and violence, addiction, and the death or imprisonment of a parent. Those experiences, along with ineffective and unstable caregiving, impair learning and the development of “executive functions” such as concentration, self-discipline, and problem-solving. All these consequences occur independently of public schooling and, largely, before public schooling has even begun**** These problems in turn perpetuate the cycle by diminishing opportunity and career prospects. Between 1960 and 2010, Murray reports, the percentage of upper-class households with a full-time worker declined from 90 percent to 87 percent, while the lower-class decline was from 81 percent to 53 percent. And so, as the next generation starts its own families in its own communities, one can only hope the lower class will manage to hold the eroding ground on which their parents stood. The trends, unfortunately, suggest they have little chance even of that; as the cycle spirals downward and decay engenders yet more decay.**** But elements in Edwards’s upbringing that might have mitigated his economic hardship — a two-parent family instilling strong values, a community filled with hard-working role models committed to the betterment of their children — are exactly what have now gone missing in lower-class America. Social inequality is insidious because it transmits itself across generations by interfering with opportunity.**** Can we conclude that social conditions in the lower class unfairly impair opportunity? If we do, it should affect what outcomes we consider just and what level of government intervention we demand. But the situation is not only a fundamental challenge to some conservative assumptions; it also reinforces conservatives’ emphasis on family and community and traditional values as social bedrocks that a government program or check can never replace. Conservatives are uniquely capable of understanding the problem and should lead the way toward solutions.**** For better and worse, you can’t legislate social change. Social programs — especially if delivered through local organizations — can provide real help to individuals. But programs alone cannot counter the momentum of a free society barreling in the opposite direction. Instead, broader public policy must seek to alter the basic incentives and conditions fueling the negative trends.**** *https://www.google.com/amp/www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2016-02-09/the-costs-of-inequality-the-rich-and-the-rest%3Fcontext%3Damp* **https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/upshot/make-america-great-again-isnt-just-about-money-and-power.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FIncome%20Inequality&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=collection&_r=0&referer= ***http://paulgraham.com/ineq.html ****https://www.google.com/amp/s/bc.marfeel.com/amp/www.nationalreview.com/article/425746/social-inequality-matters-much-or-more-economic-inequality-oren-cass?client=safari https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=RIghbrn5yfI http://www.scilearn.com/blog/ten-facts-about-how-poverty-impacts-education https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/17/public-educations-biggest-problem-keeps-getting-worse/?utm_term=.d4f232debd33 https://www.google.com/amp/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2016/7/22/12254046/myths-higher-education-crisis-debt-loans-free-tuition This ties into my weed ideas!!!!!