the moon is full again. it's how i know this is all a dream. the moon is always full. someone once told me that was a gotham thing. hard to remember who that was. NOWADAYS A LOT OF THINGS ARE FUZZY. a few tumbles too many. the laughing gas probably didn't help. no . . . no. it's all fuzzy because dreams are like that. in this dream, i smile . . . but there's a small, lucid part of me that wants to wake up. the dream has lasted quite a while. a long time in the dark. i mean, EVEN THE DARKEST NIGHT MUST END . . . right?
SHOWGAL is an independent & private retelling of dc's dr. harleen quinzel. mostly headcanon based but hugely inspired by šejić's 2021 harleen run. 21+ ; told by ophelia. triggering content within, consistent with harleen's source material. this is a story about second chances. it always has been. a clown and a kryptonian walk into a bar . . . sm4llville's other wife ♡
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harleen quinzel, MD. july 20th, 199x. 5'0". bisexual. she/her.
harleen quinzel graduated from gotham u's medical school. she is a doctor !! ( ~ around 24. )
in most verses she completed her psychiatry residency at one of gotham's research hospitals, starting at arkham once her residency is complete ( ~ 28 )
in some verses (where she does not finish her residency) she is a resident at arkham
she does not have her phd. she has worked in a research lab and she has published papers. in some canon continuities she does have her phd in psychology - but this is handled incredibly inconsistently (e.g. the dceu flip-flops between the two.) my harleen is an md.
i'll mumble about this in replies sometimes but her research is on the erosion of people's empathy responses in the face of trauma. this is taken straight from harleen (2019). she started working with soldiers & moved on to working with arkham's patients. i mumble because please don't ask me to do real research for this silly little blog i can't read
i imagine she gets some kind of emergency med training at or because of arkham because of how frequently people get hurt there.
she loses her medical license after the joker thing. she has to. this ruins her life more than anything else. she's wanted nothing more than to be a doctor and help people her entire life & now she can't do that and she has nothing.
after losing her license, getting free of joker, and getting sober (this can all take years, depending on the verse) ⸺ she has a few options.
sometimes she just bounces around being the therapist for gotham's underground ( and occasionally their emergency surgeon, but you are so fucked if your life depends on a harleen quinzel with practically no surgical training ).
sometimes if i feel really bad for her i give her a job at wayne biotech. ( she's supervised and she has a purpose and she's getting drug tested. this pretty much eliminates the harley quinn threat. )
sometimes she prescribes weed to depressed college kids via telehealth app ( * she can't legally do this on a suspended license but you all need to let me have this )
in every verse where she isn't a psychiatrist ( her grey's verse, a few of her private verses ), she is a trauma surgeon. she's so steady in a crisis.
you can address her as harleen quinzel, md or dr. harleen quinzel xoxo
i have approximately 9000 thoughts about harleen per day soooo instead of putting them all on the dash individually i've been keeping them in this list . . . so here are your fun harleen facts for the week..
harleen doesn't drink coffee. it's a monster or nothing.
full sugar coke girlie. we've discussed this before.
harley teaches everyone the ophelia dance (u know, keep it 100 on the land, the sea, the sky . . . ). everyone. riddler, ivy, selina . . .
picture : her starting trouble so the bat will pick her up just so she can bully him into listening to showgirl in the batmobile ( this is not a serious blog )
also : i think sometimes during the joker years the only places she feels safe enough to sleep are curled up in the batmobile or in ivy's apartment. b and pammy are maybe the only people in gotham she feels safe with. ( this is a serious and very sad blog )
i actually think if joker hadn't gotten to her she would've gotten really into aerial silks / aerial hoop as an adult . . . needs somewhere to direct all that gymnastics energy
on that note, she competes very seriously in gymnastics for most of her life - from four years old until she finishes undergrad (~21). she is very good. could have been team usa good if she'd had more money & didn't live in gotham & hadn't focused so much on academics too. her life is so regimented . . . so many early morning practices. everything is so controlled.
adjusting away from that is weird. residency keeps her so busy she doesn't have to think about it. arkham is chaotic too & she never gets a chance to settle because you know who shows up and ruins her life but i think in verses where we spare her from that you really see how antsy she gets. she has to take up running. it's bad.
deeply deeply feel that harleen quinzel would never have a child until joker was in the fcking ground ( injustice ur on thin ice )
been thinking a lot about how harleen really relies on the bat for her redemption until jason dies until barbara is paralyzed until tim starts being robin until he fails to kill the joker
so you kind of . . . see these two harleen quinzel tries to be good arcs and in the first one she's wholly reliant on the bat as her moral compass (making! another! man! responsible! for! her! choices!) and pretty much playing at whatever bruce's idea of good is and then the second one where she's in fucking freefall forced to figure out what she believes and what she wants and make this choice in a way that's actually sustainable for her. hq show i'm sorry i hated on u u were so right with this bat fam -> gotham city siren arc as brief as it was . . .
hi can you tell us about your vision for harley quinn's look? what's her everyday style? does she have a particular harley quinn costume that you like best? what's it look like? what's the color palette and style for her?
dee!! i love this question thank u so much . . . i think her life is divided into a couple of phases ( eras, dare i say ) and her style certainly reflects that!
as doctor quinzel ( and earlier in her life ) she barely thinks about what she's wearing. she's either in athletic clothes, sweatpants + a sweatshirt ( not those cute matching sets, all gotham u branded. ), or thrifted business wear. ( think sweaters & pencil skirts & blazers that have not been tailored. )
her hair's always in a bun or in a ponytail. her nails are never done & she might wear mascara if she's really feeling it, but it's such a pain to put on makeup with her glasses. ( contacts = only for athletic activities. ) she's always been pretty, but she's never put any effort into her appearance beyond looking put together ( and honestly she's fairly frazzled most of the time. pieces falling out of her ponytail. wrinkled sweaters and skirts. )
she wears black if she needs to look good and has one floor length black dress she wears to nice events. otherwise, it's a pair of skinny jeans + a leather jacket to the bar. red if she's trying to look sexy.
she's always in very dated silhouettes. she started undergrad around 2015/2016 and a lot of her clothes still are from that era.
she's either in sneakers or in combat boots or in a six inch heel ( which is barely professional, by the way ⸺ but she feels so much more powerful in a pair of insane stilettos. )
* j*ker & abuse discussion ⸺ skip if you want to live in happy harley land
her clothes start to become her armor when she's being abused by joker. everything's feeding into the sexy, stupid, unaware narrative she's feeding everyone. she doesn't know what's going on! she can't be held accountable! she couldn't possibly have chosen this! her face is always caked in white makeup to hide the bruises. she doesn't want anyone to know, even though it's obvious. smeared red lipstick. anything to distract you from what's really going on.
i love her arkham knight costume ⸺ the frilly little skirt, the low-cut top. it's feminine and sexy and fun and almost practical. she can cartwheel in that thing. i don't tend to put my harls in the classic harley costume just because i don't imagine it blending well in a live-action world ⸺ same for the arkham knight costume, buuut she definitely owns that thing.
i normally put her into something close to her suicide squad (2016) costume for most threads. ridiculously tiny shirts, a stupid crop top, pigtails. playing the dumb sexed up clown at all times so no one realizes she's still lucid. how can she be responsible for any of it if she's just joker's plaything? part of this is her trying to play this part and her choice. part of it is joker trying to take apart this woman in every way possible and i'm not sure where that line is because i try not to think about that man too much.
her wardrobe is all black & red at this point. post-joker, when she's in the suicide squad, she's in a corset & leather pants/jacket like 80% of the time. often covering every inch of herself but also still leaning into these sexualized materials and silhouettes.
particular favorites for this suicide squad period are sejic's suicide squad outfit ( pictured top right ) because she would be on silly little missions in her underwear ⸺ and the red dress from gunn's tss ( pictured bottom right ). you see more structure than what she wore with joker, i think ( the leather, the corsets. ) less daddy's little monster and okay, do i feel hot in this? ( but still . . . the fixation on being hot. )
after that . . . she has no idea who she is. very much a journey of self-discovery. bright colors, crazy outfits, very birds of prey-esque. i love her caution tape jacket!!! you see her lean away from the red & black here. she will never wear green or purple.
this relaxes as she settles back into a normal life. you see her in pastels for perhaps the first time, these soft pinks and blues ( my blog's color palette!!!! ) she can be gentle and fun. all these pieces are from boden which screams an older, healed harleen to me. she's so much less sexualized here, comfortable in her own skin ⸺ you see her wear heels so much less too, opting for comfy flats and sneakers!!!!!
bonus : i looooooooooove a retro harleen. dan panosian draws my favorite harls of all time. obsessed!!!!
hello !!!! i haven't talked about my primary source for harls in a while so wanted to take a few minutes to do so since i do write her a bit differently than we tend to see on screen / in her current run / in fanon !! while i pull bits and pieces from the dceu + comics, this blog is primarily grounded in Šejić's Harleen (2019) ⸺ it's only three issues so it's a quick read, just saying 😌
way, way more under the cut but y'all cannot be reading all of that so! quick notes on the pieces of my blog canon that originate in Harleen:
harleen as a kind, caring, competent doctor who wants to help, not to get a book deal or to make people worse
harleen who did not sleep her way through med school but who was taken advantage of by a man when she was nineteen years old
joker lying to harleen + convincing her he's the perfect patient for her research ( she is trying to save gotham city !!! ) to get to her; her falling for the lies and not for the sociopathic monster he actually is
harls becoming harley when she accidentally kills somebody trying to save an escaped joker's life ( thinking he can still be redeemed AND trying to convince him to turn himself into the police ) . . . having no choice but to flee arkham with him or go to prison
bruce & harleen sharing this quiet faith in each other All Along, but also bruce massively pissing harleen off at all times ♡
can be redeemed. Not Evil.
the drinking. all the time. this is canon lollllll i did not invent this 😔
a few of my favorite quotes to set the scene :
in my dream, i feel guilty. i feel responsible. after all, he [joker] is my patient.
i make the worst mistake of my life. i smile back.
my story's the one where the girl dances with the devil, and he takes her with him on a long road to hell. that road starts, as they often do, with a good intention.
introducing dr. quinzel.
sejić presents harleen as an incredibly competent, highly driven doctor. this is a solid break from the 'harleen quinzel is only a psychiatrist so she can write a book on her patients and get famous' / 'harley quinn went into medicine to do harm' narratives that i see pushed every so often. this harleen is very much a good doctor who believes in her vow to do no harm and who is trying to help gotham.
she comes into arkham after two years of research on army vets, trying to expand her research to gotham's criminal population and find a way to identify these at risk individuals and intervene before it's too late. ( yeah yeah, this is comic book medicine at its worst ⸺ we roll with it here. )
he also adapts the 'harley quinn slept her way through school' narrative which is normally used to discredit her. she is nineteen fucking years old when she sleeps with her professor ( assumably her first time, too, which is so fucked. ) he is the villain!! harley is a name her classmates invent to slutshame her!! ( this is why i so rarely refer to her as harley. )
also, hello ? if you'd never looked my way / i would've stayed on my knees / and i damn sure never would've danced with the devil / at nineteen
this follows her through her residency but that narrative is dispelled to the reader and to harleen by her boss who reminds her that she got top grades with her other professors, too. she is smart! she is capable! she did not cheat her way through school! she wanted to be loved and a man took advantage of that, as men do.
this is all so important to the way i write her ⸺ that she is, before anything else, a doctor who wants to help gotham. a woman who worked harder than anything to overcome her circumstances and get to a place where she could help. and being taken advantage of by that ⸺ and then so ruthlessly humiliated by it ⸺ deeply affects her in future relationships. it isolates her & makes her vulnerable enough for joker to take root.
the joker
he bores me. anyways . . . he steals a copy of her research and lies to her fucking face ( as expected ), convincing her he's the perfect candidate to prove her hypothesis. she certainly should have known better, and she knows this. she is still trying to help at this point!! she still thinks she can save him ⸺ and if she saves him, she thinks she can save gotham.
the fall.
harleen becomes harley by accident. she's in love with joker, but she's still trying to save him. there's a breakout at arkham & she shows up trying to find joker in all of the chaos. she 'convinces' him not to kill harvey dent (he is obviously playing a Game here, but she's in too deep to see it) & tries to talk him into turning himself in. as she's doing so, one of arkham's security guards (and her friend) shows up and threatens to shoot joker. she panics, still believing that joker can be saved, and points a gun at the guard, trying to get him to drop his weapon. the safety is off - she shoots him, wholly by mistake. she is devastated, has a mental breakdown, almost kills herself, and then flees with joker ⸺ because what choice does she have? it's go with him or go to prison. she does not choose to become harley. she does not intend to kill. she does not want to join the joker's criminal empire, she is not interested in being his 'queen.' she. wants. to. be. loved. and. to. save. him. look how devastated she is!!!! my little baby. i love her ♡
the bat
at one point harleen seeks out the bat while she's treating joker to ask him why he doesn't kill. she's very clear that she is seeking out hope and a reason to keep going. hellloooooooooooooo!!!!!!
the wayne foundation sponsors her research so bruce feels incredibly guilty over what happens to her ⸺ feels like he put her in that path. these are some of my favorite lines & are foundational for how i write harleen's relationship with bruce / batman on this blog. " you've never met harleen, alfred. she wanted nothing more than to help! he took her work and her kindness and he used it against her! " / " if she is lost, then be a beacon. a light in the storm to show her the way back. "
also! i love the depiction on the third page of harleen trapped in the funhouse mirrors while harley skips around . . . because exactly. she is there, she is lucid, she knows what's going on, she does not want to keep being harley.
bruce having faith in harleen and harleen having faith in bruce . . . . i'm going to Die. four fucking years of offering his hand waiting to pull her out of the dark . . . . they see each other. i will say there is an additional layer of complexity that i write in re: the robins ( particularly jason ) but i think that comes in after she's left joker and certainly was not addressed in harleen. she also is occasionally a bruce hater because she doesn't think he believes joker can be saved but you know what whatever she gets ovr it
other bits
harleen has a drinking problem lol.
( this panel in particular is funny to me because she is sooooooooooo autistic to me . . . she doesn't GET your stupid made up rules she will not play by them she is just trying to do her job. i know people often headcanon her as having adhd which - maybe? but i think that's an impression people most often get from looking at harley quinn and not harleen quinzel. i think she's autistic and the adhd-esque behavior you see from harley is 1.) a mask 2.) not helped by repeated head trauma. anyway⸺ )
she gets held at gunpoint by joker at the very beginning of the story - before he is her patient - and has terrible nightmares afterwards. she gets to a point where she starts drinking to help her sleep. it is a problem for her. she drinks a lot on this blog and this is why. ( i think i inherited her drug problem from the dceu though lol )
saw Theeee funniest tiktok about therapists vs psychiatrists and wanted to share Theeeee ugliest collage with y'all because the comments were all So Harleen
most media is such a mess with psychologists vs. psychiatrists and the psychiatrist/therapist thing . . . my harls is a psychiatrist (medical doctor) and i think often about how little she realistically would have been doing therapy . . . miss gal was a researcher first and foremost and then did a looot of medication management.
obviously that's less interesting narratively for interactions which is why she's always doing talk therapy in her media - there are still some psychiatrists who do even tho their numbers are dwindling (down 50% since the 90s?!) so i keep it and just wave my hand and say arkham is understaffed and underfunded and it's almost always informing her research. if she isn't at arkham she's almost definitely not doing therapy, she's doing med management . . . and the above is exactly how she acts lmaooo
we can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. that's all it takes, knowing that we're not going to kill today ⸺ my god, what have i done? what you had to do, what you always do. turn death into a fighting chance to live.
some time after world war iii, wayne enterprises leads the development of a colony far from earth. they call it new gotham, and it is supposed to bring hope.
but every iteration of gotham is cursed; even new gotham cannot escape this narrative. the colony falls to corruption, to crime. its people starve and bribe and climb over each other's bodies in the hopes of seeing the sun, one more time. new gotham loses contact with the federation.
centuries later, harleen quinzel is born. she doesn't stand a chance. her father is embedded deep into new gotham's underground; there is a roof over her head, a place in its private academy, but there is anger and fear.
desperate to escape, she falls in with gotham's reigning crime lord. she is so young. he promises her a ticket off the planet, on one of a handful of ships that leaves the colony each year. he lies.
harleen ambushes him at the dock, presses a knife to his throat. the first time she ever sees that much blood is when she kills the joker and stows away in the cargo hold of a ship, destination unknown.
she planet hops for six months until she boards a starfleet ship bound for earth. it is the first time in her life she sleeps peacefully. she arrives on the planet with blood underneath her nails and a burning desire to join the people who saved her.
harleen graduates from starfleet med & begins to serve on the enterprise (or the discovery, or the cerritos, or⸺) as ship psychiatrist, and as an extra pair of hands in a crisis.
there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands of women like this in the city. we all know them and we all agree they’re great. they travel, they pay taxes, they’ll spend $400 on a pair of manolo blahnik strappy sandals, and they’re alone.
when your taste in men is as bad as mine, they don't just go away quietly. they slash your tires and they kill your dogs and tell you that the music you like ain't real music at all. and all the cruelty tears you apart after a while.
dededos
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