Harleen Quinzel/ Harley Quinn

Subject Facts

Full Name: Harleen Francis Quinzel
Codename: Harley Quinn
Age: Twenty-Eight
Gender: Female
Archetype: Rogue
Aliases: Clown Princess / Doc / Harls / Muffin
Marital Status: Single
Affiliation: Variable

Subject Attributes

Meta-Human Abilities:
Toxin Immunity: Harley is immune to all toxins and poisons.

Survivable: Whether meta human or not, Harleen seems incredibly resistant to damage. She often performs daring feats that pose incredible health risks, and she almost always seems to survive unscathed. Be this sheer dumb luck or something more scientific remains to be seen.

Standard Abilities:
Gymnastics: From a young age, Harleen was a talented gymnast and acrobat. Thanks to peak conditioning and her incredible agility and speed, her skill in both areas has improved ten-fold since becoming a career criminal. Naturally flexible and light on her feet, Harley uses her knowledge of gymnastics in combat, and has perfected a bouncy and unpredictable fighting style.

Shrink Skills: Thanks to her training in psychoanalysis, Harley is adept at reading people, and is incredibly good at finding what annoys them.

Disguise: Harley is a master of elaborate disguise, and has taken on a number of identites since becoming a criminal.

Psychic resillience: Due to her fractured mind and constant mood swings, Harley is incredibly hard to read. As such, even trained crime fighters find her unpredictable and, at times, hard to deal with. Psychics also struggle piecing together her thoughts - they're so broken its impossible to make sense of them.


Paraphernalia:
Bag-o-tricks: Harley Quinn carries what is akin to a Bat-vigilante's utility belt, but filled with her own gadgets, customised to bare a 'Joker' theme. Within the are all sorts of devices, though rarely are two the same. Oft used are laughing gas grenades, exploding cupcakes, hand zappers, bouncy spring-shoes and razor-edged playing cards. The Clown Princess also tends to carry a variety of handguns - some of the 'cork' variety, others with a more traditional extending 'bang' flag.

Mallet: Harley's favourite weapon is her hammer. Oversized in every way, it would be far too large for a normal human to carry or weild effectively. However, Harley seems capable of putting it to devestating use.

Harley Quinn attire: Harley's villanous attire is one designed to look like a jester, with classic harlequin patterning. It is similar in thickness and flexibility to lycra in order to allow for her gymnastic approach to combat. Her face is covered with a black eyemask - and her blonde pigtails are stuffed into a 'jester cap'.

Bud and Lou: Harley has two pet hyenas named Bud and Lou. They are incredibly loyal, and obey Harley's commands without question.

Subject Weaknesses:
Mortality: Perhaps Harley's most obvious hinderance is her mortality. Though immune to poisons, she isn't bullet or knife-proof. Fatal wounds are just that - fatal. Magic affects her as it would affect all living beings.

Self-taught: Harley's fighting style is one developed without any real tutelage in martial arts. While it is effective due to its brutality and unpredictable nature, against seasoned crime fighters the former psychatrist would find herself at quite some disadvantage.

Mental Instability: Once mild mannered and shy, she has become boisterous, loud and demanding of attention. A criminal with little filter, suffering from bipolar moodswings and a penchant to adore things that are generally frowned upon, Harleen doesn't always play well with others.

Stick to the plan? What plan?: Harley is naturally spontaneous. While she tends to enter in to situations with a plan, they are always fast discarded, and her reckless abandon near always puts herself and the few allies she has in danger.

Joker: The Joker's hold over Harley has had a serious effect on her persona. Once, she was bent to his will and his alone. As time has passed, Harleen has become stronger and more confident in her own existence, able to operate without his approval. However, she still has deep feelings for her former beau, and can often be found at his side, even following their numerous splits. At such times, she would sacrifice almost anything for his well-being.

Subject History

Harleen Quinzel came from one of Gotham's poorer families – one that suffered immensely due to the unshakable gloom of the city. Her mother was overly strict; her brother squandered his money on a family he couldn't support, having children with at least two different women; and her father was a criminal who conned women out of money. While her childhood was far from idea, Harleen was described as having a genius-level IQ. She was the family's only bright spark, and she attended Gotham State University on a scholarship for gymnastics, where she majored in Psychiatry under Dr Odin Markus – taking the course in the hope of better understand her family, especially her father.

Quickly bored of her initial classes, believing them too broad in their focus, she tricked her way onto the school's graduate Psychiatry program by proposing a thesis to Dr Markus - 'There are only two circumstances under which a person disregards the rules of society. When they commit a crime, or when they're in love.' Offering herself and her boyfriend at the time, Guy Kopinsy, as test subjects – she put her lover under intense stress and a series of tests before he, unfortunately, killed himself. Witnessing the chaos she had caused, and indeed the unpredictable path Guy had taken, Harley believed that she had worked out how to understand the mentally insane of Arkham, who often acted without seeming logic or sense. Suggesting she would do anything to get an internship at Arkham, Markus gave her a glowing reference for her commitment, and she secured a position soon after.

Dr Arkham, on listening to Quinn's thesis and exploits, assigned her to the Joker – the villain she most wished to study. In their early sessions, she became so engrossed in the patient that she believed she had fallen in love, and he began calling her 'Harley Quinn' at her instance, so she could indeed have a name that was more like his. Despite him strangling her early in their relationship (which the Joker later referred to as a 'joke') she began a secretive affair with the criminal, and aided him escaping the asylum numerous times.

Eventually, she was caught and committed to Arkham herself, despite her claims his releases were supposed to help in the Joker's therapy.

Following her incarceration, Harleen fell more fully into the role of 'Harley Quinn' – that of the Joker's henchwoman. She often broke out of Arkham in hopes of aiding him in his schemes, but was almost always recaptured – at times sacrificing her own freedom so that her lover was able to go free. Indeed, she did whatever he asked of her without question, and struggled to act on her own, her every action taken to support the Clown Prince of Crime.

It finally dawned upon Harleen, however, that her feelings for the Joker were not entirely reciprocated, and that he was, simply put, abusive. In realising this, Harley struck out on her own and became a crime boss in her own right, gathering a group known as 'The Quintets.' As their leader, she regained confidence in herself, and forged her own criminal career, out of the Joker's shadow.

Following her own path saw Harley face an assassination attempt by her own Quintets, battle vigilantes and other villains alike, steal from Hush at the behest of Catwoman, and undertake numerous missions with Pamela Isely, her only real friend. During the Battle of the Cowl, following Batman's supposed death, Harley's most pressing task was to reclaim her stolen pet hyenas, Bud and Lou, and did so with the help of Poison Ivy. She also made an attempt on the Joker's life - payback and vengeance for all the times he'd attempted to kill her. Though Harleen failed, it proved to both her Puddin' and her just how strong her resolve had become.

Harley has continued living her life of crime, and has felt herself being drawn back to The Joker's side. However, she does so as a much stronger individual, able to stand up for herself and make her own decisions.

Subject Interview

“Alright! Get ya hands up!”

The high, squeaky, almost child-like voice echoed around the palatial room – bouncing off walls and rising into the building's cavernous roof. All other sounds had ceased, and beyond the ringing of the words spoken, one could have heard a pin drop. The two security guards, who were some feet away – weapons pointed into the thick smoke that had erupted from the vault beyond – froze instantly, all too aware the sound had come from behind them.

“Drop the weapons!”

Slowly, and with frowns, both muscled men moved into crouching positions.
“Thaaaaaaaaat's right. Niceee and slow, GCPDummies!”
One glanced back, as if too look who had got the drop on the pair, and was met with a firm boot to the face.
“Did I say you could turn around?!” Harley Quinn shouted, glaring at the man who'd dared defy her instruction, and the force of the kick sent him skidding across the floor, knocking him out cleanly. His partner finished disarming almost instantly, gulping thickly.
“Now,” said Harley who stepped toward the downed man, but kept her gaze fixed on the upright, “You're gonna help me load allllll the stuff in that vault into my van. Capiche, Security Stan?!”

The greying guard stammered, struggling for words, and shook his head.
'I...I c...I m'
“I w-I f-blah, blah, blah! The only words I should be hearin' from you is 'Yes Miss Quinn.' Y'got it?!” she tilted her head questioningly, causing the 'ears' of the jester hat atop her head to flop comically to one side, belying her menacing nature.
There was a long pause, and Harley's eyes narrowed behind her black face mask. Slowly, she raised the ridiculously oversized pistol she carried in her hands and pointed it at the unconscious male at her crimson-booted feet.
“Load the van or your friend goes kabluey!”

Eyes wide, the conscious of the pair leapt to his feet and sprinted toward the open vault, Harley's blue eyes tracing his every movement.
“You might wanna do it fast! I got an itchy trigger finger!”
Her threat served its purpose and made her forced labourer move faster. Then, angling the barrel of her revolver to the right, pointing it away from her downed target, she rubbed the pad of her gloved index finger against the steel trigger – scratching said literal itch, causing her to sigh contentedly.

Author's Notes

Player Alias: Star / Kory

Other Characters: Starfire/Koriand'r, Cassandra Sandsmark/Wonder Girl

How did you find ARFD?: I'm a long time member! <3