*it's 2am so ignore any spelling errors*

I'm rewriting Apples.

Yes, this is no news to those who regularly message me or follow my twitter! (@ thekillingj0k3, gimme a follow and a dm!! <3) It's nothing new either, though the process is extreeemely slow, I'm really gonna do it justice and do it right this time. I know, I apologise greatly to those who really wanted more after the last chapter I left here, but with what was already written, and the progress I had actually made in the grand scheme of the story... I just couldn't. I couldn't let this story that I'd let marinate and grow in my head, this great and beautiful tree with its crooked branches and intertwining vines- I couldn't let it be reduced to this thing that I was scrambling to update just to please people. I've discussed this before, but everything- the twist, Dr. Arkham, Mara, Colter, June and Joker's relationship, their kiss... none of it was done correctly, nor how I imagined it. I really let the 'popularity'/demand for the story get in the way of the actual story, and it wasn't any of you guys' faults- you were all just excited, and I'm so grateful!- it was my own fault, and I think I just got caught up in all the excitement. Again, I'm really, really sorry, and I really hope you enjoyed what I wrote to begin with regardless, and I hope you enjoyed my past stuff like Ace of Spades. You guys' support is what makes me refuse to give up on the story! It's why I have to do it properly this time.

The more this story sits and moves and crawls in my head, the more I fall in love with everyone inside of it, with Arkham Asylum, with Gotham, with this shadowed and half-faded Joker, with Juniper, lovely Juniper Stoltz... I really adore June. I refuse to let this story be a 'could've been', because this is her story and she deserves to live it, to experience it. You deserve to experience it. I want to share the love I have for this story by doing it properly this time, no bullshit.

It'll take a while. I know, it's almost been a year, maybe even over that- I'm not so sure- but I've started university, I'm coming into my own, living by myself for the first time- despite feeling like I'm still fourteen, I'm eighteen and let loose into the world! And my love for the Joker has not wavered one bit, I promise you. Anyone who follows my twitter would know well enough!

Since it'll take a while, I'd be very eager to publish one-shots, smutty or not, or short stories (progress on the one I'm doing in collaboration with Alyssa over at @SweetFantasies is slow, and it's totally my fault, so sorry Lyssa!) but of course I'd love your opinion on whether you'd like any, and of course, any ideas are welcome. If you're hesitant to comment, hit me up in the inbox!! I don't want to lose contact with any of you, and of course I'd love to publish more for you guys to read!! Speaking of @SweetFantasies , buy Catatonic, her very first published novel and re-imagining of her Joker fic! I'm currently reading it and loving it so so so much <3

But back to Apples. 

Here's some things I'd like to cover:

- It's a total rewrite, from total scratch. The general plot is the same- June works at Arkham, has powers, gets into Joker's head. Don't be surprised if certain quotes from the first draft are transferred to the rewrite!

- The title will be changed from Apples, since apples are not relevant in here whatsoever.

- I will publish it here on Wattpad, and try my best to publish it consistently on Fanfiction and Archive of Our Own/ AO3. My username is the same or at least similar on all websites.

- Some characters remain the same, some change A LOT. Dr. Arkham is still a douche, Joker and June remain the same (though I gave June an additional character arc that will take some re-watches of The Dark Knight to grasp... top top TOP SECRET!!), but characters such as Colter and Mara, while retaining the same personality, will most likely have more time in the spotlight to actually impact June and the story the way I intended for them to. Mara is debatable, but count on Colter's dumb ass to make his presence heard MUCH more in the rewrite.

- Certain chapters or patient interviews, most likely chapter 3 and 6, will most likely not be written into the rewrite, though that may change. Meaning, if your favourite moment was hearing the Joker say 'fuck' to annoy June, then I'm sorry to say that you won't get to see it again in full glory (that moment was NOT glorious, nor was I particularly proud of it). Like I said, I wanna try to develop their relationship FOR REAL and not mess around trying to, like idk... do whatever I was trying to do for fanservice or whatever. But that's good news, because:

- This draft of the story will remain here, the rewrite will have its own seperate copy as another story on my account, so if there were any chapters or moments here that you just really, really liked, don't worry, they won't be deleted!! I was really arguing with myself in my head whether to just delete the chapters and copy and paste, but despite some of my issues with this version of the story, I really don't want to delete them. It's good to have this as a reminder that though I can write good, I can do better, and to prove to others that writing is hard and it isn't always perfect the first try, to encourage a little more honesty between writers and readers in this fandom, if not on Wattpad entirely!! I also adore the comments on those chapters, and whenever I need encouragement, I really do occasionally revisit some of them to remind myself that my insecurities as a writer are just that, and that there are people out there, like you, that enjoy what I have to offer. 

There are people that want to hear the stories I want to share, and I really can't thank you guys enough for it. Wattpad has been such an amazing experience for me, despite the website's abhorrent reputation, and I have met the most amazing people here who I now call my best and closest friends. Whatever community this is, the Batman fandom, or the Joker fandom, I guess, I feel like I'm really, finally, actually a part of a community and a group of people who just share a similar love for the Joker, and for Batman, and for Gotham. I know it's cheesy but with Ace of Spades, sure, I've outgrown its self indulgent plot and egocentric narrative but I don't care, I LOVE it for introducing me to people who share and encourage ideas all under the love we share for a character, just one character, one idiot in a clown suit who doesn't know when overlining his lips becomes too much. I'm not leaving Wattpad, and I'm not leaving Apples, or whatever this story may be called in the future. I love the Joker and I love Juniper Stoltz. I really feel like I have a story for them that Stella's experience could never hold a CANDLE to. I promise you that.

With that, I'd also like to say that I know Heath's death anniversary was yesterday and that I didn't post about it. It's been eleven years, six years since I've known him, and trust me, just because I didn't post, doesn't mean I forgot or didn't care. I promise, I knew. My body knew. The second I woke up, I felt heavy and anxious. I mourned and celebrated and payed tribute in my own, private way, and I don't know, I guess for me, personally, it feels superficial and flashy when I try to write some kind of eulogy for him every year and post it publicly. It's a very, very sad day of the year for me, but if anything, it's a day where I celebrate his talent the most, and, well, it's hard to pretend to be miserable and solemn about it, trying to be all like "heaven has the best angel :'(" when I'm over here laughing at Two Hands, or swooning over Patrick Verona, or smiling all heart-eyed at the Joker. No, I'll never get to meet him and thank him in person, but this is it, this whole thing is it, this account, my stories, this rewrite is my thanks to him. Everything I do, I do in devotion to his best and most favoured role. Heath and his Joker changed my fucking life, and the stories I write about him are both a testament and a tribute to that. I love Heath. I love the Joker. It's silly, I know, but the Joker as a character died when Heath did, I've said it before, it always feels like I lost them both... sure, he's fictional, but then why do we linger here, writing and reading about him, if he really didn't matter at all?

Heath, you said that all of this is insignificant. That in retrospect, we're all already gone. I guess when you said it, you were talking about acting and how your spot could easily be replaced (impossible), and well, I can see why you liked being the Joker so much. I won't for a second stand with those conspiracy-hungry idiots who literally believed you had become so crazy that you were the Joker, but rather, I believe that there's a sort of magic that had sparked inside of you when you donned that suit and pasted on those scars and plastered yourself in that makeup, that when you wore this grim visage of someone who was so, so far from you, that you had created this kind of... fold in reality. I'm crazy. But I really do sometimes believe you had created life in that moment, in that laugh. In the space between your mouth and your own breath, that laugh that was so different from your own, that smile that certainly wasn't yours, you'd just created an entirely impossible person from thin air. Not quite man, more like... a re-imagining of one. You gave chaos a body. There was a split moment when anarchy reared its painfully contorted face forward, got up on two unsteady feet and fucking walked. It walked in your shoes, in his shoes, and could feel every clink of that dull dagger tucked between leather and toe. You had created something fictional that was so believable in that moment you had me fooled. You had everyone fooled.

And when you died, that thing you had created, that... that maniac, that madman, this force of nature you gave a pair of eyes to and a mouth and fidgeting hands and restless trigger-fingers, it just... vanished. It's strange. Most fictional things, characters, they're kind of always... there, even when in reality, they're not. I don't know. There are plenty of Jokers, good, bad, some who spat on your reputation, one who I'm really eager to see live up to it. But there's no one like you, and there's no one like your Joker. I can watch your work and see you in them, alive and well, your legacy living on. The Joker, when I see him, it's like watching a grave move. Well, not so grim, perhaps, but all at once, there's this loud, colourful, lively, living, moving, oh, look at you go! this flash of purplepulsatingpalpitating thing that grabs my heart and strips it right out of my chest and he's the most alive thing I've ever seen since Frankenstein pulled lightning out of the sky and stitched it into a mosaic of flesh. He's so alive and in those moments, he really is real, I swear he is, but it's like he's trapped in time... all I have of your talent, of him, are those same lines, those same scenes. He's taken that robbery mask off a dozen thousand times. I see him lick his scars more times than I blink. Those eyes, those eyes, the colour of which I only ever see when I close my own. I have dreams about him. I have nightmares about him. You built a monster so tangible and so real that I'm scared of him, I'm scared of him.

And it's just that now you're dead, now that he's dead, Heath, there could be a million million Jokers in a million million different places but not one, not a single one could ever, ever be like yours. Even the Joker I write is put under a rose coloured lens, like a bug I study in a jar, but who knows, maybe I'm just trying to bring him back, give him more things to do than take off that mask again, than blowing up that hospital again, than reliving that same Gotham summer over and over and over until his words become a dry hum in the back of my consciousness.

The only thing between us, really, is time. Time and reality and the subtle folding of the universe overlapping in the same spot. I'm trying so, so hard to lift that fold. That same fold where for a second, you brought to life the most terrifyingly beautiful pieces of moving art I've ever seen. A purple Pagliacci rip-off with a murderous streak. I don't know. I'm crazy. But that mark on the wall- it moved. This character you created, no, you didn't lose yourself to it, you never lost yourself to it, you never died because of it. You just duplicated, a trick of the light, blink fast and you'll miss it- you created someone from just a laugh. I suppose in writing, I'm just trying to make that laugh last a little longer. Give it room to form an echo. It'll fade eventually, but still it'll continue to linger in the air. Maybe I'm just trying to bring you and what you made back to life again. Maybe I'm trying to pull out of the sky that electric buzz that animates still objects. Maybe I'm like Atlas, propping up that dead world on his back. I suppose even he has to let go of it eventually.

And so will the universe unravel that fold.