@dc where is the au where dr. harleen ‘fucked my professors to get my grades up/experimented on my fiance for extra credit, which ended up killing him/only working at arkham to get access to the high-profile patients so i can write a tell-all on them and immediately dip after getting a trashy talk show deal’ quinzel doesn’t break joker out of prison and follow him into the criminal world, and instead decides to take over arkham from the inside, usurp the director and get free reign to exploit the patients however she pleases.
specifically i want her balancing her time between
embezzling money from arkham’s accounting division bc she wants some louboutins
schmoozing with gotham’s corrupt elite businesspeople, police officers and magnates
being just as likely to advocate for the rogues as she is to exploit them and head a manhunt for them, all for her own selfish reasons
being the only member of arkham’s staff who genuinely understands the rogues and why they are the way they are, but not because she’s a Good Doctor; because she’s one of them and she just happens to be camouflaged as one of the doctors
giving patients terrible treatments
lying about their progress
fucking with their heads during therapy sessions so they’ll go out and cause chaos that she can exploit to make the board of directors look bad
blackmailing everyone anonymously
slowly but surely fucking with arkham staff politics so the decent doctors burn out, die or are fired and the ones as shitty as her, or too incompetent to be threats to her, advance
watching daytime soaps and gorging herself on jelly beans in her little corner office during the breakout of the week, with her door locked specifically so that bitch orderly janice who scuffed her motorcycle two days ago by mistake, who she KNOWS is going to be sprinting down the hall in a blind panic any minute will be locked out, cornered, and devoured by killer croc, all of which she can watch.
foe yay with ivy, who’s like ‘damn i mean. she’s hot. but she’s no different than any of these other assholes who strap me to tables and stick me with needles, and might possibly be worse. but she’s also trying to take over the asylum, and even though it would be absolutely horrible for her to succeed, as a straw feminist and a disgraced former member of male-dominated academia, i respect the hustle. but i also want to strangle her.... and maybe kiss her....’
and, of course, flirting with joker every time he’s incarcerated, before throwing him in a rat-infested cell. being just as likely to demand he be brought in at any cost, specifically so she can continue trying to crack open his head, as she is to open the door and say ‘have fun. see you next month.’
(the first time she pulls the latter, he refuses to leave. convinced it’s some kind of reverse psychology therapy. he and ivy have animated debates about this.)
and inevitably when she’s caught in a hostage situation, the sexual tension between the two of them gets so uncomfortable that j’s goons just.... ‘do you need a minute? we’ll leave’
(they take that minute sometimes. boy do they take it)
specifically i want joker being like ‘well shit do i break out and fight batman or do i hang around for a few more days bc that hot doctor who gets my jokes and is a vicious bitch like me might try to electroshock me again and my dick would love that.’
and sending her fuckin flowers and chocolates and shit, some of which are booby-trapped, all of which she keeps.