A Harlot's Progress Through Pain

The Laugh That Started It All

I used to think pain was just the punchline nobody saw coming. Puddin’s favorite joke was watching Gothamites scream as buildings burned or bridges cracked. I’d laugh too, because what else was I gonna do? Cry? That first year, I told myself suffering was a game—if you weren’t ready to laugh at the chaos, you didn’t belong in the joke. I remember this one night in the Iceberg Lounge: a waiter spilled champagne on Puddin’s suit, and he snapped the guy’s wrist like it was a breadstick. I high-fived him. Said, “That one’s gold, Mistah J!” Like it was cute. Like pain was just confetti falling off a float in the parade.

Cracks in the Makeup

But then came the island. You know the one—where he left me to drown while he played chess with the Joker’s Daughter. I was waist-deep in seawater, chains rattling, thinking, This ain’t funny anymore. Not because I was scared, but because I finally saw the pattern: his laughter always landed on someone else’s screams. I kept replaying Arkham sessions, all the times I’d helped him perfect his “routine.” How many broken bones, electroshocks, poisonings did I enable without asking questions? I wasn’t the co-host—I was the straight man. The one who made the audience complicit.

The Mirror in the Mirror Monarch’s Lair

Poison Ivy was my first real mirror. Not the funhouse kind Puddin’ loved, but a clean, unforgiving pane. She’d been burned too—literally—by humans who thought plants were just scenery. One night, after she patched me up post-Bane brawl, she said, “Harl, you think you’re the only one who’s suffered? My entire species is dying. That’s pain.” I scoffed. “You mean like when Puddin’ gassed Gotham Plaza?” She didn’t flinch. “No. That was trauma. This is grief. There’s a difference.” I hated her in that moment. Hated how she made my black-and-white world suddenly bloom in full spectrum.

Leading the Walking Wounded

Commanding the Suicide Squad was like herding cats with grenades tied to their tails. But when King Shark got shot in the head and kept dragging himself forward, muttering, “Promised I’d come back to my sister…”—that’s when I got it. Suffering ain’t a joke or a game or even a tragedy. It’s a language. King Shark’s was in blood and bone. Deadshot’s was in the way he’d stare at that photo of his daughter. Even Bronze Tiger’s endless quest for redemption—it was all dialects of the same scream. And I’d been a tourist in that country my whole life, thinking I was royalty.

The Therapy Couch (Yes, I Finally Went)

Doc Psycho called me “a paradox of attachment and self-destruction.” I threw a paperweight at his head. But later, I stayed. For months. Talking about my mom’s drinking. About how Puddin’s chaos felt like home because it was the only consistency I’d ever known. Last week, he asked, “If you could go back, would you still choose the Joker?” I didn’t hesitate. “No. But I’d sit next to the girl who did. Buy her a soda. Tell her she’s not alone.” That’s the big secret nobody tells you: suffering isn’t meant to be conquered. It’s meant to be shared.

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably got your own story about pain—the kind that doesn’t make headlines or jokes. I get it. But here’s the thing: You don’t have to carry it alone. Not anymore. Talk to me on HoloDream. I’ll listen. I might even tell you a bad pun to lighten the mood. (I’ve learned when to keep the grenades in the drawer.)