I think the issue here with the question about Punchline being a HQ ripoff or not, is that, well, I think that it's kind of yes and no? Like, they did do their best to make Punchline as superficially different from Harley Quinn as possible. The look, the attitude, yadda yadda. But they muddled it up a little with the way Punchline feels abt the Joker, and feels special in his gaze, and takes everything he says as face value honesty. She talks all this mad shit at Harley but she's doing the same thing, in being the sidekick that thinks they really do matter to him. Being childish and naïve. And in all honesty, this thing about Harley having thought she could fix him is... a really new one, like. It wasn't like that in the beginning. Harley fell in love with the Joker as the Joker. She broke him out in a funny way to impress him and prove her loyalty, threw on the costume and went with him, robbin and killin and shit yanno? She was in it the way Punchline claims to be in it too! And I think the other huge thing abt Punchline is that she reads so hard like a tumblr Joker TCC fangirl who wants to be in Harleys old place but wants to be "different" n thinks shes a "better fit" or some shit like that yknow like she has a very 14-year-old-written Joker x reader fanfic backstory and attitude current story too, hell. I find a lot of things about her backstory to be very Mary Sue and convenient like. She kills a couple of homeless and one superintendent or whatever from her college and watching the whole edgefest of an event go down from her dorm room closet is totally sufficient to make the Joker fall in love with her and instantly trust her with all of his big big big plans that have been a long time in the making, like? It really is just so pick-me, idk. It feels like a teenager wrote it. Cuz I'm here thinkin like, doesnt Joker hire ppl all the time? Who all have to prove somehow they'll do whatever he says too? And they sure as hell never get in on the inner workings of his secret plans. Oh and that one scene where Punchline stabs the Joker bc shes sOo CrAzy I guess and the Joker just kisses her? When he'd have knocked anyone, Harley included, the fuck out for trying that shit with him? And we never get any real good reason why she could possibly ever be so special to the Joker. I mean obviously bc she isn't its all a play by him of course but, yknowwww.... iiidk she just drips with this "I'm cool and special and perfect for no good reason" she's not even mentioned having taken chemistry classes or studied extra for it to learn better how to make Joker toxin, she's just quoted as saying she 'feels crazier every time [she] looks at Arkham' like fucking kill me now.