Rules

Portrayal. This is a DCEU ONLY blog based on the film Suicide Squad as well as extensive personal headcanons. Source material DOES NOT include any of the comics or the animated series. Interpretation may be considered canon divergent.

Exclusivity. This is not a fully exclusive blog, I do have plenty of nonexclusive partners; however, I very strongly prefer to be exclusive because I don't have to worry about competition between duplicates, it keeps a consistent timeline of events and relationship between our characters, and it allows me to build closer relationships with my partners.

Duplicates. In order to maintain my own comfort, I softblock Harley rpers who follow me without contacting me first. I am cautiously open to the idea of a twin verse with another Harley, but we would have to see eye to eye on a number of things, so it would require prior discussion. If you are a Harley rper, please MESSAGE ME before you follow me if you're interested in writing together.

Selectivity. I tend to only interact with mutuals, and I can be a bit selective in who I follow. Mostly I'm concerned about writing quality and prose style and if I can see our characters having an opportunity to interact. I have a difficult time with prose that is a bit too abstract and poetic. I am an extremely literal and concrete thinker, so it can be hard for me to understand or respond to that style of writing. I format my replies, but do not care if my partners do. I am open to crossovers with other fandoms and also to alternate universes.

The Joker. Joker rpers interested in writing with me have their own rules. Please read THIS POST, as it discusses my policy for shipping Harley and Joker. I don't write with any Joker who hasn't read that post, and I can tell if you haven't.

Shipping & NSFW. This is a multiship blog. Ships that are not with the Joker typically take place in a universe where he has died. Both mun and muse are over 21. I strongly prefer my partners to be at least 20 years of age because there are many very dark themes present on this blog. I do write smut from time to time. It will likely involve some pretty violent and kinky content, so please be advised. I try to tag replies that exceed an R rating as NSFW. However, I will NOT be putting nsfw content under a read-more.

Preferences. Please don't control my character. Please don’t reblog my rp threads unless I am writing them with you. Please cut your posts / don’t reblog as a link. Please move asks to a text post to continue a thread. I don't keep anonymous asks open because people are dickbags. Replies post on a queue.

Reference & Credit. Formerly harleyquccn. Faceclaim is Margot Robbie. Teen faceclaim is Alison Lohman. Icons are by the lovely @promisestoned & @tragedyveined. Theme and other graphics are by @promisestoned. Some promos are by yours truly.

Author. Zoë. 28. She/her. American. ISFJ. Scorpio. Heathen. I'm in my last term of graduate school, and I have family obligations. As such, replies are slow, and I take short hiatuses sometimes. Sky.pe is available to all mutuals upon request. Please do not hesitate to ask. A directory of other roleplay blogs written by yours truly can be found here.

Disclaimer. I am not affiliated with Suicide Squad, David Ayer, or Margot Robbie in any way. This account is for roleplay and personal enjoyment purposes only.

Basic Info

Physical Traits

Combat

Family Members

Personality

One

     Harleen Quinzel was born to Tammy Lynne Quinzel in Brooklyn, New York on April 2nd, 1987. Tammy Lynne, a drug addict whose lifestyle could be described as erratic at best, never told Harleen who her father was and consistently claimed not to know. Harleen secretly suspected her mother's drug dealer, but never had any proof to support her theory. Due to her mother's substance abuse, Harleen was frequently placed in the temporary care of her grandparents during Tammy Lynne's stints in jail, the hospital, rehab, and when she was too strung out to take care of her daughter. Consequently, Harleen's childhood was marked by consistent upheaval, neglect, and occasional abuse.

     When Harleen was 6 years old, her mother gave birth to a younger sibling, a baby sister for Harleen named Lichelle. Tammy Lynne claimed to also not know who Lichelle's father was, but encouraged Harleen to bond with her sister. As Tammy Lynne was often unable to take care of Harleen, let alone another child, the older sister often found herself nurturing the younger in place of their mother. Harleen loved her little sister and did her best to take care of her when her mother was absent or incapacitated.

     When Lichelle was 2 years old and Harleen was 8 years old, their mother was recovering from a bender and had been passed out for the most part of several days. Harleen was used to caring for the baby by then, however, they were running low on food and their mother's stash of emergency cash was empty. Lichelle began to cry, hungry and too young to understand their predicament. Determined to take care of her sister, Harleen found a tin of Vienna sausages in the back of the pantry and fed them to Lichelle. When her sister began choking, Harleen didn't know what to do. She tried patting her back and waking their mother, and eventually called their neighbor and 911 to get help, but by the time help arrived, the baby was dead. Harleen never forgave herself for the death of her sister.

Two

     Tammy Lynne was arrested on child neglect and drug charges as a result of Lichelle's death, and Harleen was again sent to Gotham to stay with her grandparents until her mother was released on bail. As Harleen grew older and came to develop an understanding of her situation and the consequences of Tammy Lynne's addiction, she came to deeply resent her mother. This anger only made their relationship worse and intensified the fighting and abuse. By the time Harleen was 16, her mother was convicted of more serious drug charges, and full custody of Harleen was finally granted to her grandparents. Motivated to avoid her mother and encouraged by her grandparents to acclimate to Gotham and make something of herself, Harleen made efforts to do well in her new school and even joined the gymnastics team. If it weren't for her move to Gotham City at the end of her sophomore year, Harleen may never have graduated from high school. As it was, her high intelligence merited her decent grades despite her inconsistent attendance, and she got into college on a gymnastics scholarship.

     Her freshman year of college, Harleen's grandfather died, leaving her only remaining family an aging grandmother and an incarcerated mother whom Harleen hated. Determined to prove her mother wrong and to gain the love and approval of her grandmother, Harleen worked hard in college. She graduated with good enough scores to get into graduate school, and pursued a degree in psychiatry in order to get a better understanding of herself and her own emotional wellbeing (or lack thereof). In her third year of graduate school, Harleen's mother was released from prison and shortly thereafter died of a drug overdose. Harleen refused to take a leave from school and only pushed herself harder to escape the circumstances of her upbringing and become “better” than her mother had been.

     Harleen's biggest accomplishment in life was graduating from school as a psychiatrist and having her grandmother there to see her receive a diploma and land a coveted internship position at Arkham Asylum. Harleen did not come to understand that this accomplishment was motivated more out of a desire to be loved and to please her grandmother than it was to make herself happy until she began her work. It wasn't difficult for Dr. Quinzel to realize that the people in Arkham weren't so different from her, and that if it hadn't hadn't been for a very specific set of circumstances, she could easily have been on the other side of the table. This was a concept that deeply unsettled the young psychiatrist, until she met the infamous Joker.

Three

     From the moment that Dr. Quinzel laid eyes on the Joker, she was fascinated by him. The recklessness with which he behaved and his complete devotion to chaos compelled her towards him. His ideology and philosophy were the antithesis of everything Harley had been struggling to fight for her entire life, and it was intoxicating to her to see things from his perspective. She became more and more obsessed with understanding the Joker, and was slowly influenced by his values and viewpoint to no longer conform to other people's expectations of her. With few close friends and colleagues to notice the change in her, the evolution went unchecked.

     Nine months into Dr. Quinzel's internship at Arkham Asylum, her grandmother suffered a stroke. She survived two days in the hospital with Harleen at her side, during which time the elderly woman was not always awake or coherent. During the few lucid conversations they shared, Harleen's grandmother told her that it was okay that she was dying, because she knew that Harleen would be okay without her. She told Harleen that she had noticed a change in her over the last year, and that Harleen seemed to finally find her own happiness (which her grandmother mistakenly misattributed to the practice of psychiatry), and encouraged her to pursue that which made her feel fulfilled in life. She told Harleen that doing what made her happy was the most important thing in life, and professional accolades and other people's standards were irrelevant to life's grander purpose. Eventually, her grandmother succumbed to the stroke and died, leaving Harleen alone in this world but for the one person who seemed to truly understand what was important in life: the Joker.

     After the death of her grandmother, Dr. Quinzel became more and more isolated, spending most of her time with her patient. She understood that she was falling in love with the Joker, but found that there were fewer and fewer reasons why this was a bad thing. The Joker made her happy, and the rest of her life seemed a mess of abandonment, death, and unfulfillment. By the time the Joker asked her for that machine gun, Dr. Quinzel had been contemplating a huge life change for months, daydreaming about a life in which she could escape from her current life and into one that was fun and exciting. Deciding to help the Joker escape was the natural progression of line of thought, and was Dr. Quinzel's formal decision to change her life.

Four

     Proving her dedication to the Joker was another matter entirely. The Joker was suspicious of her, particularly due to her role as an authority figure in Arkham, but also because of the unnerving understanding she seemed to have of him as well as his own developing feelings for the doctor, which he found alarming and uncomfortable. Initially, his plan may have been to prove that she didn't truly mean to make the life change that she said she wanted, but her fearlessness, resolve, and fortitude eventually convinced him that she was truly dedicated to him, and could potentially be an asset to him. This conclusion left the Joker conflicted at best.

     From the moment that the Joker pulled her out of that vat at Ace Chemical plant, Harley considered herself a changed woman. The Joker's acceptance of her transformation combined with her physical metamorphosis seemed a rite of passage to her, and thus Harley Quinn was born. She went home with the Joker that night and never looked back.

Teenage Harleen

     By the time Harleen was nine or ten, she had become a pretty skilled thief out of necessity, stealing whatever it was that she needed in order to survive due to the inadequate living standard often provided by her mother. Before she was twelve, she was learning how to boost cars with some of the neighborhood's less reputable characters. Even after she ended up with her grandparents in Gotham at age sixteen, Harleen couldn't change who she was completely. She was smart, but characterized a bad attitude, resenting authority and struggling with self-loathing as well as the urge to steal things in order to feel a sense of control over her life.

Arkham Intern

     Dr. Harleen Quinzel's tenure at Arkham was characterized by a strange dichotomy. Her tenacious ambition and desire to prove to herself that she was better than her upbringing clashed against the knowledge that she was unhappy in that life and that she had more in common with her patients than with her colleagues. Despite the fact that she excelled in academia, her achievements consistently felt empty to Dr. Quinzel, and she often suffered from a sensation akin to Imposter Syndrome, feeling that she wasn't truly the successful psychiatrist that the world seemed to view her as. This cognitive dissonance ultimately fueled her feelings for the Joker and her decision to become Harley Quinn.

Harley Quinn

     The one and only infamous Harley Quinn began her life of crime when she helped the Joker escape from Arkham Asylum. Since then, she has joined his crime syndicate as an equal partner, taking her place as the rightful queen of Gotham's underworld. Harley uses her intelligence and knowledge to gain the upper hand against enemies and partners alike, striking shrewd deals with other criminals and evading law enforcement with ease. She and her puddin' keep a wild lifestyle of partying, mayhem, and violence that is both exhilarating and unpredictable. Aside from her stint in Belle Reve, Harley is largely happiest in her life as Gotham's queenpin. Even her time with the Suicide Squad wasn't really so bad.

Unbleached

     When Dr. Quinzel was turned down for the internship at Arkham Asylum, she never met the Joker or discovered the side of herself that eventually developed into Harley Quinn. Dr. Quinzel became a licensed psychiatrist following an internship at a rehabilitation clinic that reinforced her hatred for her mother and her desire to rise above the circumstances of her childhood. She lives in a nice apartment just outside of downtown Gotham and works private practice with a consortium of her colleagues. She struggles with generalized depression and the self-loathing that permeated her youth. As a result, she often doesn't take care of herself, and she spends most of her nights at a bar or club where she can forget who she is and lose herself in alcohol, music, and a throng of complete strangers who have no expectations of her.