[Western Crossover] The Joker's Guide to Self-Rescue

My name is Arthur Fleck.

I think I'm a transmigrator.

At first, I thought I'd just transmigrated to an ordinary Western world.

Everything seemed perfectly normal.

Kids usually just go to school, grow up, and do ordinary things...

That is, until my mom, who worked as a maid for a wealthy family, was heartlessly fired by those ruthless capitalists.

She tried looking for a new job, but unfortunately, she got sick. Maybe the job market was just that bad, because even after a scammer swindled her out of every last penny, nobody would hire her.

Well, I guess it's time to experience the classic American life of an unhoused, out-of-school kid.

Anyway, I'd better make the most of the time I have left in school.

Oh, my poor mother. She's started writing letters.

She's trying to get help from her former employer. Yes, she's absolutely convinced he's a wonderful person.

Uh, based on what I know about capitalists so far... are there really good ones and bad ones?

Then one day, after she'd been waiting for a reply with no luck, Mom finally couldn't take the pressure anymore and confided in me: her former employer's name was Thomas Wayne.

Oh, Thomas Wayne.

Wait, what?!

What Wayne? Thomas who?!

Something suddenly felt very wrong.

Wasn't the famous Batman's last name Wayne?

So I sincerely asked my mom, "Is the city we live in called Gotham?"

Mom looked at me as if she thought I might be crazy.

"Our city is called Gotham City. Do you have a fever today?"

Oh no.

I must've been so bad at English in my previous life that I can't even connect Gotham with Gotham in this one.

All right, now things are even worse.

As far as I know, there's some big bad guy called the Joker in the future, and all he does is try to send the ordinary people of Gotham to meet their maker, just to provoke his little Bat...

To avoid becoming part of their game, I decide to take active steps to save myself.

"Mom," I ask again, completely earnestly, "what do you think about moving to New York next door?"

My dear mom looks at me as if she's finally decided I'm crazy.

"We don't have a single penny, dear Arthur," she says mercilessly. "Do you know how expensive rent is in New York?"

Oh, right.

Ordinary people really do have to be practical.

Getting rich overnight and living the life of a vigilante who goes zooming through the sky have nothing to do with me, except for the fact that ordinary people get caught in the crossfire.

Ha. I don't even have a penny to my name.

Putting aside my immediate struggles for the moment, I decide to start earning money while I'm still a kid.

Before that guy called the Joker shows up, I'll try to make enough to move next door to New York with my hopeless mom.

Maybe I can start by making a little pocket money from my sweet, well-off classmates with melodramatic short stories and dark jokes.

Send me 50 and I'll tell you about my revenge plan against Thomas Wayne.

Then one day, my mom tells me he's my biological father.

Me: ?

You really didn't need to add that kind of setting to my life.

I know it'll make my melodramatic short stories sell like hotcakes, but, dear Mom, we can't afford to pay a rich guy royalties.

Let's sneak in quietly and keep our heads down!

But Mom seems absolutely set on this.

Fine. I can put up with a slightly crazy mom and her middle-aged fantasies about a torrid romance.

After all, Mom never complained about my, uh, laughing sickness.

Let me reiterate: I think I'm perfectly healthy mentally. Maybe this weird illness is just one tiny little setting the world gave me?

Maybe I'm even an important cannon fodder character in some story, so I need a memorable quirk?

Yes, that comic has already been running for thousands of chapters, and I'm proud to say...

I've never read a single word of it.

Anyway, first things first: I need to earn some tuition money.

Uh, dear Mom, sending letters costs money. How about we go from once a week to once every six months?

My dear mom gave me a whole childhood.

Tsk.

Adults, huh? The moment something happens, they take it out on the kids.

But it doesn't matter. I can still transmigrate to another world and swindle Batman out of his money.

But a few days later, I spot a luxury car parked by the ridiculously long staircase below my apartment building. The one that leaves me exhausted every time I climb it. Oh, and there's a huge pile of garbage there, too.

Oh, I really might be Thomas Wayne's kid.

...Looks like I won't have to pay royalties after all.

Of course, it'd be even better if Dad doesn't claim me.

Damn it, my grand plan to make it from nothing can't be cut short by those awful capitalists!

The following is the third-person blurb.

Arthur Fleck.

Mom's little ray of sunshine.

And the kids at school's little ray of sunshine, too.

After discovering that he might be in the Batman universe, he does his best to save himself, successfully making it to the age of sixteen and moving to New York, where he even meets a really nice family...

Oh, he doesn't have the last name Wayne. Bastards shouldn't get involved in other people's families.

Besides, he hates Thomas.

Capitalists really should be strung up from lampposts!

But as they say, the sky can change in an instant, and people can transmigrate at any time.

After getting used to transmigrating, he finally drops into Wayne Manor, where his younger brother, who suddenly looks more than a year older, holds a batarang to his throat and calls him the Joker.

So he's the biggest and smallest joker in the deck, the craziest guy in Gotham City, the guard in front of McDonald's, the busiest man in the circus... the Joker?!

What?!

Thomas Wayne never mentioned that when he acknowledged him as his son!

When he was a kid, back when he was transmigrating all over the place, he almost called Batman Dad!

Why didn't anyone tell him this?!

Wait... you're saying that in my world, my mom is the future Joker?!

Reading Notes:

This is a nonstandard Joker story. Arthur is a good kid, really.

He's Thomas's biological son. This is an original setting! An original setting! Not the original canon setup.

The whole story is told in third person.

Please don't develop any fondness for the Joker. Every pitiable person has their reprehensible side. His past was indeed the fault of society, but continuing to do wrong is a sin he can't escape responsibility for.

Treasure kindness and truth. We were born under the red flag and raised in the spring breeze, and we firmly uphold the right values.

Don't forget to smile, kids.

Theme: Nobody is a clown