#sp rambles

Here's a diagram of his powers and my take on how he got them.

The origin of his powers is still the same in my AU, I really love the angst of his origin being something completely out of his control and tying in to his parents' usual lack of thinking about anyone other than themselves. Attending cult meetings just for free beers and to fuck around, I make the lore be that they got in trouble one night with the dark forces and ended up swearing off their next child to Cthulhu and having blackout no memory of it the next morning. This also is an explanation for why Kenny had seen R'lyeh before, because his soul was born into there in a shadow-like form before it was placed in his body and he was born as an actual human. His memories weren't fully developed, but it did feel familiar, which would make sense if it was during a stage where time passed differently and he had a different form of consciousness.

His shadow powers all originate from being connected to Cthulhu. He can summon shadows from the ground to fight for him in different ways: tentacle-like ones that grab and trip enemies or grab him objects, sentry shadows that he can see through or just send and have report back to him, and simply just the shadows around him that he can use to attack with like in TFBW.

Here is more information on his body type.

Whenever he dies, his body is taken by the shadows in order to revive him and his soul returns to the ball of shadows it originated as. He has a weird non-human consciousness in this state, again resulting in R'lyeh being a strange, fuzzy memory. When the dark forces take his body to repair or replace depending on the severity of the injury they take it to R'lyeh. It's considered as the place "dead Cthulhu waits dreaming" in actual Cthulu lore so it makes 100% sense for that to be where Kenny goes once he dies. Once his body is patched up/replaced his soul reinhabits it, and for a small amount of time he's in a not-quite-physical stage while it adapts. He emits a lot of purple shadowy energy/aura stuff in this state and he's free to wander and visit Hell (like in BLU). Then, as his body slowly becomes more physical, once it's ready the shadows forcibly return him through the ground back to the surface of the earth.

Because I could just talk about every detail of him forever I also have notes on how his belt looks and works. The "M" is a sharp shiny emblem and Multiple people asking No he cannot turn it to Wumbo. Or maybe he can because Kenny would love a SpongeBob reference. Who knows. Anyway he's got storage pockets to hold all his stuff in like some money, tools, sentimental motivation, etc. It's a bit of a complicated mechanism to get on and off but surely that's fine, a slightly hard to reach button that lets him move the emblem over enough to unbuckle it like a normal belt after. He usually keeps handcuffs dangling from it to use on enemies and his radio to contact his team with clipped on there too.

Mysterion is very prideful. He takes his job as a hero very seriously and has a strong desire to protect the town and he doesn't want anyone to get in his way. He also truly believes in his ability to save and help people, which is why he isn't shy to often give Chaos the 'you don't have to be the villain' speech. He also really hates how easily Chaos can make all of his strong morals waver by just tilting up his chin, smirking, and saying how much he'd love to have him on his side while their faces are inches apart. The way Chaos can completely fluster and break down his facade drives him insane.

He lives in a shitty apartment with Stan and Kyle and they're all part of the Freedompals team (I make it so CAF and Freedompals are all joined as one; Timmy runs the team, Tolkien is second in command and funds a lot especially the base, and Cartman thinks hes second in command but really isnt even close). Outside of it, he works like 2 jobs at shitty fast food restaurants or movie theaters or whatever he can find, because unfortunately being a hero doesn't get them much more than government grants for tools and barely any actual salary. The elation that comes with getting recognized for his services a huge bonus (jokes like 'Yeah I carry condoms in case anyone hot wants to thank me for saving them', I stand by saying Mysterion is more like Deadpool around his friends and more like Batman around everyone else LOL), but it truly is just that, a bonus. He genuinely wants to protect the town and the people in it, and almost everything he does is with his little sister in mind, just wanting to make the town a better place for her and everyone, keep the city safe out of the goodness of his heart and maybe juuust a little bit of a savior complex.

first is obviously jason because he should be allowed to avenge his own death. he also has no issues with killing, so there’s no moral hangups there. easy.

dick, because that was his little brother who died, go fuck yourself. (he did try, so kudos to him for that valiant effort. I’m sorry bruce fucked that up for you. more on that later.)

i like the idea of tim killing joker but i’m torn on whether he could go through with it or not. i think he could but maybe that’s my special guy syndrome talking (in my defence though, joker junior is a thing. the potential is… sort of there). <- you can argue junior isn't actually time because of how broken his mind was at that point, but you could ALSO argue that the potential to kill/tip to villainy was always there, it just needed a push.

duke or steph could, but only if they wanted to. as far as I’m aware, they follow bruce’s ‘no killing’ rule pretty consistently, so I don’t think they’d actually want to as a form of their revenge/justice. but they’re on the list of people who could, because (I fear I don’t know enough about either of them, if you’re a fan of either of these characters, please feel free to correct me) it wouldn’t be a massively out of character for either of them. actually maybe that’s a lie it feels out of character. hm. either way, their motivations are reason enough to want revenge. the joker is the reason duke is a ward of bruce’s to begin with, with his parents in hospital because of the joker gas/venom thing (fuck i forgot the actual term), and steph has seen firsthand how he’s hurt the people in the city, especially her friends. they both have decent justifications. to be completely honest thoug, i think they would choose not to kill him. but if they wanted to, there's nothing that would stop them in the way that being batman stops bruce.

babs, adding another tally to the ‘avenging yourself’ count. i love her and what she makes for herself and her vigilante identity as oracle in wake of her injury/disability, so the avenging is not because she was 'better' as batgirl compared to oracle, i just think she deserves a shot (haha) at killing joker.

jim fucking gordon. give that man a gun and a chance. the joker's dealt with by the end of the week.

harley quinn, for sure. she should be allowed to get her revenge for what he did to her. that's an easy yes.

...any old gotham citizen with a gun could kill him honestly, i don't know why no one’s just. gone at him before. joker’s fucked up so many lives it’s got to be statistically impossible that NO ONE has tried to vigilante their way into getting rid of him. not one mentally unwell teenager with too much to lose has packed their shit and gone on a suicide mission to take him down? (who's NOT in the batfam already). no overconfident adult (police officer maybe? nurse at a hospital who has to see patients brought in every day because of a crime related injury?) has ever thought to themself "he's just a man. i can shoot a man." and gone after him, endangering themself and several other citizens in the process? like. joker's actually just a human guy. no special enhancements. bleached skin thing doesn't count. yeah he’s batshit fucking insane, but shoot a man in the skull with a gun and he dies. joker should be no different.

anyways. part three: who else SHOULDN’T kill the joker. not who isn’t capable, but for whose character does it just… not make sense.

i think that it’s really important it’s NOT cass or dami who kill him, entirely because they’ve both killed before. an important part of their character arcs is that divergence from their upbringing, that they don’t have to be killers anymore, regaining their own autonomy and being able to pursue their definition of justice in a way that is different to how they were initially taught. i think even making one exception like this would, again, set a precedent for their behaviour and probably make them feel worse about themselves. that recent-ish episode of wfa (not recent anymore by the time I post this) explains what i mean here really well. (i expand on this a little later). I know some people don’t like that comic and it's characterisations, despite it’s official status, but I will admit it communicates my exact point here really well.

not to play devil’s advocate here but. there’s the argument that if either of them were to kill him, it would be entirely on their own terms and not because they feel like killing people is the only way to fight/solve their problems. I assume they would need to feel secure enough in themselves for that, but I still feel like it’s doing their character arcs a disservice. fair enough if they do go for it, but there’s an entire lineup of people (see previous paragraph) who would like to kill him instead, so I hope it wouldn’t come down to either of these two. which is not to say they don’t want joker dead, or they care less than anyone else about stopping him! obviously not. but similar to batman there’s that moral line that it feels important for them to not cross, just for different reasons. not because of what their masks/legacy stand for, but what they, as people, stand for.

okay thank you for listening to my ted talk.

wait i have more to say. just. on bruce when he revives the joker. that was… okay i have things to say about that because wasn’t that when dick tried to kill the joker? i am not 100% sure on the actual canon of this to be honest- but he did not need to try so hard to save him like that. literally all he needed to do was look away GOD it’s not like letting him die will break your personal no killing code YOU DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A HAND IN IT. (i think. actually maybe i’m wrong) you could argue he didn’t want one of his children to become a killer, regardless of whether dick regretted it or not? still sounds like a bullshit argument to me.

also on bruce enforcing the no killing rule. that doesn’t apply to people like cass and dami, to who it matters because of their character and their past, and to everyone else who chooses not to because they have free will. i’m talking about bruce’s issues with jason killing. surely he must see that there’s no right or wrong way to go about fighting crime?? not everything is black and white????? the whole definition of ‘vigilante’ is fighting crime outside the law. play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. but. it’s very in character for bruce to not get that things may not be entirely black or white. we stay struggling.

and you know what? killing someone (even a terrible person like the joker) is a big thing. people kind of gloss over it but taking a life is something that holds a lot of weight. I think we forget that in a lot of action comics, because the violence seems so exaggerated that it’s unrealistic, it's hard to take seriously. but guns are very real, and have very real impacts on people, from when they were first invented, up to right now, and they always will. so choosing to use a gun, to pick it up and fire real bullets at people? that’s a character defining choice for someone to be making.

oh yeah the wfa episode i was talking about with cass. that’s the one where lady shiva meets her on the rooftop and goes “hey. kill joker.” and cass wants to!! but the thing is, lady shiva just wants her to be a killer again. she doesn’t care about taking down joker, it’s about the principle of it, the act of cass killing someone again, forcing her to return to her roots. that’s why it’s important that cass doesn’t kill anyone, even the joker, and why her choosing to follow bruce’s ‘no kill’ rule is so crucial to her character arc.

this also applies to dami. I know less about the loa but it’s similar to cass’ upbringing I think, considering they were both raised to be assassins? but also?? he’s a fucking kid??? a twelve year old should not be killing, and he should not feel like it’s his “responsibility” or whatever to avenge his family and/or friends. he’s been through enough. they’re both clearly capable fighters but it’s important (to me at least) character-wise that cass and dami aren’t the ones killing him.

and tim…. i think he could. and get away with it too, this guy is a meticulous planner. “I took a calculated risk, and I’m pretty fucking good at math,” type shit. please fight me if my special guy syndrome is blinding my vision right now. HOWEVER. I want to argue that out of all the robins to date, he’s the most similar to bruce. this is in terms of their focus on “the mission” and what they’re willing to sacrifice for it. he’s the one to understand that batman needs a robin. robin balances batman out, they’re a team. therefore he also understands exactly why batman can’t kill. part of the reason he steps in to become robin in the first place, exposing that he knows their secret identities even at risk to himself, is because he’s scared bruce will break his no killing rule without a robin to keep him in check. there’s a panel in ‘lonely place of dying’ where tim literally has to call an ambulance for some thug because batman left him so beaten up that tim thought they would die if left unattended. so i feel like maybe he’d take it upon himself to do the job? to do what he understands bruce can’t? realistically he’s gotta fight past like. twelve other people to get to the joker first though… but that would be his thought process at least.

to finish, my top picks for “who gets to kill joker” are dick, harley and jay. not necessarily in that order. i think they should team up. personally. babs maybe wouldn’t…. directly kill him? but she’d certainly help, or at least turn a blind eye to it.