A/N: This is mostly based on Batman: The Dark Knight (which doesn't seem to have its own category?), but it's also a mishmash of the way I see the Joker in the comic books. In the movie (Heath LedgerAMAZING), it really threw me that Joker said he wasn't a schemer. Joker always struck me as a schemer, because he's not insane, he's so incredably lucid we don't have a word for it.
Disclaimer: All hail DC.
The Joker doesn't remember who he was before.
Or he does remember.
But what the Joker remembers changes from moment to moment, like a badly pieced together film - skipping from scene to scene, sometimes coherently, other times...
But who or what the Joker was before (if there ever was a before) doesn't matter now.
The past is the past. The future is the future. The present is now, or it was a second ago, no, it's now again.
Present was then, it's now, and it's now, and now, and now...
The Joker lives in the present. For the present. On the present. With the present.
And because (correlation, one follows the other, cause and effect) he lives in the present, he lives in the past too. And the future.
But he's always here. And now. Because now is then, and then is now.
To say the Joker does not scheme is a fallacy (deception, lie, untruth). For, in truth (truth? It's all true), scheming is all about the future. And Joker too is all about the future.
He has endless plots (schemes), all spiraling out of each other. And like the Joker him(it)self, the labyrinth of plans (schemes) is constantly shifting about. Endless turning, grinding, moving, changing.
He knows what happens (and what he does) now, nothing more, nothing less.
While the Joker hangs (droops, dangles, suspended from), he gazes upon (looks, glances, notices) the rodent.
And while the Joker hangs, he runs about, swinging his pipe (his club, his crowbar) at the Batman.
And while the Joker hangs, he butchers (kills, maims, hurts) the false (lie, untruth, fallacy) Batman.
And while the Joker hangs, the ships in the bay are consumed in fire.
And the Joker laughs.
Because now, he defeats (gains victory over, foils) the Batman.
Now.
Now is then (it happened so long ago). Now is now (the Batman is staring back). Now is then (it hasn't come yet, but it will - and the Joker is there, seeing it).